Hawthorne: Lightning Jet exacta may be swept by Brueggemann barnmates

Signsealndeliver returned from a layoff of nearly five months to win the 2012 Lightning Jet Handicap for Illinois-bred sprinters. He has gone on to win two more stakes during a four-race 2013 campaign and comes up to this year’s Lightning Jet on Saturday at Hawthorne after just a two-month break. Yet Signsealndeliver’s chance at a repeat looks slim, and the reason why: A gelding named Work All Week lives just down trainer Roger Brueggemann’s shed row.

The 4-year-old Work All Week debuted in a two-turn turf race about a year ago at Hawthorne, finishing sixth, but grass routes are not his thing. Switched to main-track sprints, Work All Week has turned into a tiger. He has won 6 of 7 starts this season, his lone loss coming by a nose after setting a suicidal pace in the Addison Cammack on June 8 at Arlington.

No one – including Signsealndeliver – has troubled him since, and Work All Week, ideally drawn on the outside in an eight-horse field, is a deserving odds-on favorite to win the $100,000 Lightning Jet under Cisco Torres.

Work All Week starts for the first time since a front-running win in the Tex’s Zing on Sept. 10 at Fairmount. A winner with 25 of his first 72 Hawthorne starters this fall, Brueggemann finds regular success with midterm-layoff runners like Work All Week, who has logged three recent sharp drills on the Hawthorne main track, where he won twice this past spring.

Work All Week is 4-5 on Hawthorne’s morning line, but a post-time price of something like 2-5 seems more realistic, particularly since he is unlikely to get anything more than a token front-end challenge.

Sweet Luca, who nipped Work All Week this past summer on the Arlington Polytrack, has a chance to get second, but an all-Brueggemann exacta with Signsealndeliver underneath feels more probable.

Brueggemann also can have a major say in the $100,000 Powerless Handicap for Illinois-bred fillies and mares. This eight-horse field includes two Brueggemann-trained starters, Missjeanlouise and Beauty of Scarlet.

Missjeanlouise, acquired through a $40,000 claim in 2012, won the 2012 Powerless coming back from a four-month break for Brueggemann. Two races ago, on Sept. 10 at Fairmount, she defeated Powerless rival Win’em All in the $52,000 Lady Riss Stakes only to be disqualified to third in a very iffy case of interference that elevated Win’em All – the property of Fairmount owner Bill Stiritz – to victory.

Missjeanlouise, Beauty of Scarlet, and Win’em All do not seem especially solid in this spot. There’s just enough early speed entered for a hot pace to percolate, in which case Wild Hope and Fire Tricks will have a decent chance to rally into the first flight.