Litfin's preview: No turf racing again
Thursday, May 8 preview
OFF THE TURF
For the third time in the first six racing days, rain has washed all of today’s scheduled turf races – the 5th, 7th and 9th – to the main track. They remain at their original distances.
TOUGH FEATURE
Race 8 is a second-level allowance/optional claimer that could easily pass for a stakes, and indeed five of the eight fillies and mares in the 6 1/2-furlong dash have stakes experience.
Masasi and Frivolity, whose initial encounter came as 2-year-olds back in November 2012 at Aqueduct, meet up again, and are the first two choices on the morning line.
Masasi chased recent Grade 2 stakes winner La Verdad in her first start this year, earning a Beyer Figure of 90 for a solid runner-up finish. She returned two weeks later with a late rally for third in the Correction Stakes, and subsequently dealt with some minor foot issues. She is the lone entrant with experience on Belmont’s main track, and her lone start over the surface resulted in a maiden victory with a 92 Beyer for David Donk.
Frivolity is 2 for 2 this year, garnering her second- and third-level conditions at Laurel for Tony Dutrow, and is in for the $62,500 tag. She has recorded five workouts at Fair Hill since her last race, and four of them have been bullets on synthetic and dirt.
The Todd Pletcher-trained Elena Strikes is the one to catch off her last race, when she dueled through fast fractions and held second to Six Queens, who is going in Sunday’s Grade 2 Ruffian. If speed is as good as it was Wednesday, she could be long gone.
BATTLE OF BEATEN FAVORITES
Whom do you trust in race 4 – a maiden special weight mile where Bluegrass Flash, Mighty Zealous and Salisbury Knight were each beaten as the favorite in his last outing?
Bluegrass Flash, a thrice-beaten choice along with a second at 2-1 to multiple stakes winner Samraat, has been gelded since his last start Dec. 7. He may come back running for owner-breeder Patricia Generazio and trainer Christophe Clement, the same connections that had Pure Sensation ready off the bench for a good second in last Sunday’s Gold Fever.