King's preview: Trouble in the Daily Double

Wonderful weather for Sunday

Although the racing on Sunday’s card at Churchill Downs isn’t perfect by any means – some short fields and mediocre racing for a weekend – the weather should be. Mostly sunny skies are forecasted for Louisville with a high of 69 degrees – rare at this time of year when the temperature is usually around 80.

Without any threat of rain, horseplayers can handicap for a fast main track and a firm turf course.

A Daily Double not to remember

Although one would think a bottom-level maiden $10,000 claiming race would draw a full field, the day’s opener – one such race – drew just six. And it seems a scary six, too.

Three are first-timers, two aged 4 and another 6, and the three that have started have not distinguished themselves thus far. Only one entrant has ever hit the board, and that horse, Acts Like Gold, did so in November 2012, and he hasn’t run since December of that year.

The first is followed up by a better race in the second, a $50,000 claimer, but which attracted just five horses.

Headlining the day’s races

Two allowances are on tap, beginning with the third race, a second-level allowance with a $62,500 claiming condition for horses running 1 1/16 miles on the turf, and followed four races later in the seventh with an entry-level allowance for 3-year-old fillies at seven furlongs on dirt.

Bim Bam rates a narrow edge in the third, having finished third in a recent comeback race after a layoff, and Keening is the choice of the seventh, seemingly capable of transferring her sharp Polytrack form to dirt.

Spot plays

Race 5
SEDONA GAL (#5, 9-2) ran decently on the grass at Santa Anita earlier this year, with her best race there being a close fifth in a 12-horse field, and finds a favorable spot in this maiden turf race, which drew little quality.

Race 8
ARCH PEARL (#7, 7-2) turned in a fine effort his first time in America by closing to grab third in a race on the Polytrack at Keeneland. Now he shifts to the turf, a surface on which he was second and third in two starts in Ireland last year.