Litfin's preview: Late pick four begins with two tough races
Two wide-open turf stakes start $300K pick four
The Noble Damsel and Sands Point get Saturday’s $300,000 guaranteed late pick four off to an exceedingly tough start, as both turf stakes came up extremely competitive.
Adding to the confusion, well connected imports getting first-time Lasix are big X-factors in both the Noble Damsel (race 7) for older fillies and mares, and the Sands Point (race 8) for 3-year-old fillies.
The new face in the Noble Damsel is Annecdote, who certainly classes up based on a Group 3 win at Goodwood last year. She returned from an eight-month layoff with a strong finish for third at Lingfield, and was in tough five weeks later against Integral, who came back to take the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes. She gets some weight off in her United States debut for Christophe Clement, who also saddles Love Train, an improving filly who steps up in class after winning both of her turf starts this year.
In the Sands Point, Ball Dancing makes her U.S. debut for Chad Brown. This will be her first start in nearly three months since the Group 1 Prix de Diane, in which she was beaten just a half-length for third by her new stablemate, Xcellence, who comes off a close third in the Grade 2 Lake Placid.
Clement takes two shots in the Sands Point as well, sending out potential pacesetter and Belmont Oaks runner-up Sea Queen; and Walk Close, who won her first three starts before being bumped at the break and finishing well to get fourth in the Tenski Stakes.
Buried 2-year-old maiden races
As has become par for the course, the racing office didn’t do multi-race exotic bettors any favors by positioning two maiden special-weight sprints for juveniles as races 5 and 9.
Those looking to cash out the pick five and the early pick four in race 5 will essentially be flying blind in a spot where seven of the 12 entrants are first-time starters, including one (High Noon Rider) listed to wear a bar shoe.
It’s more of the same guessing game for multi-race players in race 9, the third leg of the late pick four and penultimate race in the pick six. On Tenterhooks and Breezy My Way are the only ones to have run, and both were off the board first time out. Among the seven first-time starters are Daredevil, a half-brother to Albertus Maximus, who won the Donn Handicap on dirt and the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Santa Anita’s now-defunct synthetic surface; and Wild Dynaformer, whose half-brother Pyro won the Grade 1 Forego and $1.6 million overall.
Horse to watch
COOL SAMURAI
Trainer: John Shirreffs
Last race: Sept. 11, 8th
Finish: 3rd by 3 1/4
Beyer: 79
Making his first start since the Robert B. Lewis seven months earlier, this 3-year-old gelding was off a step slow and raced wide behind Mosler, a $1 million colt who was able to dictate a very leisurely pace.