Hawthorne: Wednesday allowance might lose contenders to Gold Cup

STICKNEY, Ill. – Consider the featured seventh race Wednesday at Hawthorne as a little preview of Saturday’s Grade 2, $350,000 Hawthorne Gold Cup. In fact, two of the horses among the entries Wednesday could wind up in the Gold Cup itself.

Trainers Greg Geier and Chris Block both have coupled entries in the Wednesday feature, a 1 1/16-mile dirt race with multiple allowance conditions (but essentially a third-level allowance) and also open to $75,000 claimers. Geier on Monday said one of his entrants, Street Spice, will be scratched from Wednesday’s race to contest the Gold Cup, with Afford carrying the Jim Tafel colors Wednesday.

Block entered Hope for Today and Bambazonki and is considering a Gold Cup run for Hope for Today, though a decision on that won’t be made until at least Tuesday, Block said.

Even minus Street Spice, who will be joined by stablemate Fordubai in the Gold Cup, Geier has a decent chance to take down the Wednesday feature since Afford has every right to improve upon a fifth-place finish in a similar race here Oct. 4. Afford’s best trip is a stalking one, and he got embroiled in a pace battle that day while making his first start after a layoff of more than nine months.

“He just got tired, that’s all that happened there,” said Geier, who will head to his winter quarters at Fair Grounds soon after Thanksgiving.

Afford, a 4-year-old Street Sense colt bred and owned by Tafel, is a two-time Hawthorne winner with previous form adequate to win Wednesday’s race. Since his comeback start, he has turned in five published workouts, the most recent a bullet five furlongs in 58.40 seconds Nov. 16.

“The track was fast that day, but he just did it real easy, so he’s doing very well,” Geier said.

Bambazonki showed talent from the outset of his career two summers ago but failed to take a significant step forward until his most recent start, just his second on dirt. Aided by leading through a soft pace, Bambazonki won a second-level route allowance at Hawthorne by 1 1/2 lengths, but he would need to improve again to score Wednesday.

Also worth consideration is Mavericking, a one-time Block trainee coming off consecutive wins for Hawthorne’s leading trainer, Roger Brueggemann. Through last weekend’s action here, Brueggemann had won 34 races from 87 starters, a 39 percent strike rate, and Mavericking in his most recent start rallied to capture the $86,000 Buck’s Boy Handicap for Illinois-breds on Hawthorne’s main track.