Hawthorne: Afford finds an easier spot in Wednesday feature
STICKNEY, Ill. – It’s one thing having a stable stocked primarily with allowance and stakes horses, as is the case with trainer Greg Geier’s small string. It’s another actually finding races for those horses. But just a week after Geier and his stock – mainly Jim Tafel homebreds – came north from New Orleans, Afford has a spot to run. He’s one of seven entrants, and the most likely winner, in the featured eighth race Wednesday at Hawthorne.
The two-turn dirt race, open to $75,000 claimers, has multiple allowance conditions, and Afford fits only the most lenient of them: non-winners of a race in 2014. Afford has started only once this year and rallied for a creditable fifth behind a slow pace in the Grade 3 Mineshaft Handicap on Feb. 22 at Fair Grounds. A lightly raced 5-year-old by Street Sense, Afford has won four of his 16 career starts, and three of those victories have come over the Hawthorne main track, including a win at a similar class level last November.
Hope for Today and Big Looie will supply early pace, while Luv Bandit and Francois figure to stick close to the front end and apply pressure during the middle stages. Afford and his new rider, Julio Felix, can stalk the leading quartet – perhaps saving ground – and, with luck, run them down in Hawthorne’s long stretch.
Mavericking could get a good closing trip from his rail draw, and he finished first while facing a somewhat similar group in a March 16 race but was disqualified to second for drifting in during the stretch run. Roger Brueggemann trains Mavericking, and while Brueggemann is having a strong meeting, with a record of 12-11-5 from 42 starts, Hawthorne regulars will note a decline in volume and strike rate from Brueggemann’s last two Hawthorne springs. In 2013, Brueggemann won 38 races at a 37 percent clip, and in 2012, his stable had 42 wins, far more than it will be able to amass this meet.
Wagering down at spring meet
Hawthorne’s spring meet is suffering from painfully short fields that have resulted in a sharp decline in wagering compared with a similar period in 2013.
All-sources average daily handle during the first 18 days of this meet (Feb. 21 to March 23) was just $1,357,110, a decline of 18 percent from the average of $1,662,399 handled during a comparable 18-day period in 2013, according to information provided by the Illinois Racing Board.
Despite a steady diet of eight-race cards (the average number of races carded per day has fallen 0.62 compared with the similar part of last spring’s meet), the average number of betting interests per race at the ongoing meet is only 6.69. Accordingly, favorites have had great success, winning 39 percent of the races this spring.