Jerardi: Catch a Flight capable of beating Moreno again in Gold Cup
As I began to sift through the Gold Cup at Santa Anita field, I wondered why this could not still be the Hollywood Gold Cup (named after an iconic place instead of a formerly iconic racetrack) and what Art Sherman will be thinking when the field lines up in the starting gate as California Chrome’s great overseas adventure nears an end.
This is a pretty good group of horses desperately in need of a star. California Chrome won three consecutive Grade 1 races last spring. This group has two Grade 1 dirt wins, Moreno’s 2014 Whitney and Hoppertuunity’s 2014 Clark.
Still, it is going to take a fast horse to win. The Beyer Speed Figures and likely race shape pretty strongly suggest that this could be a stylistic, if not precise, repeat of the May 30 Californian, won by Catch a Flight with a 106, with Moreno a half-length behind. We even have the same likely pacesetter in Big Cazanova. The three horses will be lined up next to each other in the gate.
Catch a Flight has eight wins in 10 career main-track starts, the last three in his five American starts, the Beyers improving over time with a 94 in January, followed by a 96, a 105 when third to Shared Belief and Moreno in the Santa Anita Handicap, a 102 when winning the Precisionist, and then the 106.
Moreno has just four wins in 27 career starts, but he has made them count, with nearly $3 million in earnings. The horse has 11 triple-digit Beyers and all those seconds in big races. His career best was in that Whitney, with a 109. He has three 105 Beyers in 2015, and that is a number that certainly could win.
Catch a Flight, to me, is the horse more likely to improve. His ceiling is still not clear. In the Californian, Gary Stevens had to ask the horse to go before he probably wanted to. Cornelio Velasquez, on Moreno, rightly tried to blow the race open on the turn and almost did. Catch a Flight eventually passed Moreno, but it was definitely not easy. If Stevens could have waited longer, which he really could not afford to do, I think Catch a Flight may have had an even better kick.
Watch how those two jockeys ride the race and when they ask their horses to go. That moment almost certainly will determine who wins and how fast the winner goes.
Hoppertunity would have been the second choice in the 2014 Kentucky Derby had he not been withdrawn from the race. This is a really nice horse but now fully exposed as a few lengths off the best in the division. His three 2015 figures – 95, 94, and 97 – tell his story. Good but not quite good enough to win at this level.
Go with Embellish the Lace in Mother Goose
The 2-year-old fillies of 2014 were slow. So are the 3-year-old fillies of 2015, with 100 on the Beyer scale a rumor.
So, the stage is really set for a breakthrough performance in the Mother Goose at Belmont Park by a filly with the profile of Embellish the Lace. Put a line through her 2-year-old debut, where she was all over the track in a sprint. She won her maiden at Parx in December by 10 1/4 lengths with a 72 Beyer, a nice figure for a 2-year-old filly. She was not seen again until June 4, when she won a first-level allowance at Pimlico by 13 3/4 lengths and got a 95 Beyer, easily the best in this field.
If this were a really strong group of 3-year-old fillies with extensive stakes résumés, you would think Embellish the Lace might get overwhelmed by her lack of experience. But this is a Grade 1 with only one graded stakes winner, Include Betty in the Grade 3 Fantasy, which she won with an 86 Beyer.
Wonder Gal is the only other filly in the field to hit 90 on the Beyer scale, and she got there for the first time when a close third in the Acorn, a nine-point career top. She has never run a poor race while always facing some of the best in the division but has not won since her debut against New York-breds last July.
Embellish the Lace is by a Derby winner in Super Saver and is a half-sister to 2010 Travers winner Afleet Express. The pedigree and her wins around two turns strongly suggest that distance is not an issue. The lack of much other pace should put her right into the race. And the 95 Beyer kind of jumps off the page.