Hawthorne Derby: Viable alternatives to favored Charming Kitten

STICKNEY, Ill. – One might look at Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Hawthorne Derby as a spot for Charming Kitten to finally break through. Charming Kitten has won only the $100,000 Kitten’s Joy Stakes from his seven starts this year but has taken tough losses in rich races, finishing second in the $400,000 Penn Mile and the $500,000 Virginia Derby, and third in the $750,000 Blue Grass.

Charming Kitten’s only sub-par showings came in his two dirt starts: He was ninth in the Kentucky Derby, and fourth last out in the Hall of Fame Stakes, which was rained off turf and onto a sloppy Saratoga main track.

One could look at Charming Kitten another way, too. This will be his eighth race of 2013, and Charming Kitten also started last December and October. His trainer, Todd Pletcher, might instead have run Charming Kitten at his home base, Belmont Park, in the Grade 1, $500,000 Jamaica Stakes on Saturday.

Charming Kitten drew the outside post in a 10-horse field at Hawthorne, and Pletcher has named a local rider, Florent Geroux, to handle the reins. Charming Kitten is the favorite and has the credentials to win, but there are other ways to go.

Hawthorne’s derby, contested at 1 1/8 miles on turf, came up pretty strong – drawing shippers from Toronto, New York, California, Maryland, and Kentucky – considering it butts heads with the Jamaica, which is $300,000 richer and two grades higher. A competitive field was entered, and Woodbine-based Five Iron, cross-entered in the Jamaica, is scheduled to ship to Chicago rather than New York, trainer Brian Lynch said. The 2012 edition of the race was run in a torrential downpour, and wet conditions are possible again Saturday. There is also a 100-percent chance of darkness, since the race anchors the lone night program of Hawthorne’s fall-winter meet. First post is 5 p.m. Central, and the derby, race 5, goes at 7:04.

Lynch said he chose Hawthorne over Belmont for Five Iron because the competition looked slightly easier, and there appeared to be less speed to compromise front-running Five Iron. Decent at 2 and early this year, Five Iron has hit a peak in his last two starts, scoring front-running victories in the two nine-furlong turf races, the Toronto Cup at Woodbine and the Saranac at Saratoga.

“He’s developed a style: If he can clear them and get left alone, he’s dangerous,” said Lynch. “He’s got a quick half-mile in him, but he can keep going. As a young horse he could get intimidated when he got in tight, but through racing he’s found his niche.”

There aren’t a lot of speed horses in the Hawthorne Derby, but there is one other major pace player, Mongolian Saturday. Mongolian Saturday might not be quite good enough for this competition, and he might not want nine furlongs or turf, but he is fast and tenacious, and it is hard to see Five Iron breaking free from him in the early going.

That could open the door – if not for Charming Kitten – to one of three horses exiting a division of the Sept. 1 Del Mar Derby. Infinite Magic, who won the American Derby at Arlington this summer, earned the highest placing of the trio, rallying for second behind a very slow pace, but fourth-place Kid Dreams was beaten only 1 1/2 lengths, and sixth-place Dorsett probably ran as well as the two in front of him. Dorsett, who easily won the $200,000 Mystic Lake Derby two starts ago at Canterbury Park, broke from post 10 at Del Mar, and lost ground on both turns while dropping to the back of the field. He had no chance to rally behind the slow splits.

“He absolutely has more tactical speed than that,” said trainer Mike Stidham. “He just got stuck back there in no man’s land.”

While Infinite Magic saved ground and got a much better run than Dorsett, he finished with a powerful burst, but still had no chance to catch the slow pacesetting winner, Ethnic Dance.

“We didn’t think we’d get that far back,” said Rick Mettee, who trains Infinite Magic for a Team Valor partnership. “He couldn’t have been finishing any faster the last quarter of a mile.”