Long Branch comfy spot for Dean's List to try two turns
The short answer to the Long Branch Stakes is this: Dean’s List will win if his form running short translates to a longer journey.
Dean’s List, despite his lack of two-turn experience, figures to be a short price in a short field entered in the $100,000 Long Branch, a dirt race over one mile and 70 yards restricted to 3-year-olds. Dean’s List breaks from post 4 under Paco Lopez and faces five foes in the Long Branch, which goes as race 5 with a post time of 2:04 p.m. Eastern on the second card of the Monmouth meeting. Storms washed out the opening day program last Saturday, and Monmouth opened the meet on Sunday.
Dean’s List hasn’t run a poor race while going 2-1-0 from his first four starts. On the surface, he regressed finishing fourth, beaten a little less than five lengths, in the seven-furlong Bay Shore on April 9 at Aqueduct, but Dean’s List was taken out of his front-running game that day when bumped and squeezed a few strides into the race. At the back of the field rather than his accustomed place in the front, Dean’s List still finished solidly and only Wit, the Bay Shore winner, clocked a faster final furlong, 12.61 to Dean’s List’s 12.66 seconds.
“He finished up with interest, and off that we thought we’d give [two turns] a try,” said Todd Pletcher, who trains Dean’s List for WinStar Farm and Siena Farm. Pletcher said he had considered stretching Dean’s List out even before the Bay Shore, contemplating a start in the nine-furlong Wood Memorial.
Dean’s List’s longest race, the Gotham at a one-turn mile, yielded his top Beyer Speed Figure, 89, when he finished second to Morello.
“He ran well in the one-turn mile. He’s always finished off his races decently. Even in the Gotham he galloped back out in front,” Pletcher said.
Dean’s List is by the versatile sire Speightstown (trained long ago by Pletcher) and out of the Sharp Humor mare Mildly Offensive. The dam was a sprinter during her racing career, but her offspring who made the races showed the capability of staying a middle distance.
Bevengo and Buff Hello are the other horses likely to show early speed. Neither looks as talented as Dean’s List, who is drawn outside both, giving Lopez tactical options.
Drawn on the rail and very much hoping for a pace meltdown is Dash Attack, who briefly stepped onto the Triple Crown trail when he won the Jan. 1 Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn Park by two lengths over Kentucky Derby runner Barber Road. The Smarty Jones, however, was contested over a sloppy track and Dash Attack has been far less effective in three subsequent starts, all over fast racing surfaces.
Glider, drawn on the far outside, finished a distant fifth in the Gotham after a poor start and would require considerable improvement to beat Dean’s List, provided that colt handles the shift to two turns.
Later on the card, New Jersey-bred filly and mare dirt sprinters have their turn in the $85,000 Spruce Fir, carded as race 9. Princess Georgia rallied late to win the 2021 Spruce Fir and is one of several plausible winners Saturday.