Momentum builds throughout strong card
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Songbird’s first foal to race starts in a maiden route. King Ottoman makes his first start since a second-place Oklahoma Derby finish. Iowa Oaks winner Butterbean runs for the first time since July in the nominally featured eighth race. And a strong Friday card at Oaklawn Park ends with a blockbuster second-level sprint allowance.
The nightcap, race 9, carded for six furlongs, drew an overflow field of 14. The race is open to $50,000 claimers or horses that haven’t won $23,000 twice other than maiden, claiming, starter-allowance, or statebred-restricted races.
Doctor Oscar is a six-time winner from 13 starts and never has been in for a claiming tag, but five of his wins have come in Minnesota-bred races or for purses lower than the listed earnings threshold. He drops in class and his second-place finish last out in the Pelican Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs, won by Dubai Golden Shaheen-bound Sibelius, is the best single performance anyone in this race has put forth.
But Doctor Oscar is a front-running type who drew the rail. A host of quick horses will be at his throat from the start.
Start with Skelly, drawn in post 2 with excellent speed. He earned a career-best 95 Beyer clearing his first allowance condition last out, but a sloppy track might have moved Skelly up.
Life Is Hard can be rated just enough to slip into a decent stalking trip. It’s been five weeks since he turned in a strong comeback run finishing a close, closing second to the fine sprinter Cogburn. Did Life Is Hard run too hard to run right back to that showing?
The longshot selection is Ram, who returned from a one-year layoff in a one-mile Oaklawn allowance a month ago. It wasn’t much of a comeback: Ram bolted on the first turn and was eased. But Ram has returned with a couple of bullet works, and he raced effectively as a late-running sprinter finishing a close second in the 2021 Perryville Stakes going seven furlongs at Keeneland.
Butterbean is listed as the 9-5 morning-line favorite in race 8, which has a basic third-level allowance condition and a $62,500 claiming option. Butterbean cleared the maiden ranks for a $75,000 tag and looked like a filly of modest quality before winning the Panthers and the Iowa Oaks at Prairie Meadows.
She struggled over a laboring Saratoga surface in the Coaching Club American Oaks on July 23, hasn’t raced since, and is worth betting against Friday. Traverse has won three out of her last four, had trouble in her lone defeat during that span, and shouldn’t mind cutting back a half-furlong in this one-mile contest.
Magical Song, the daughter of Songbird, gets her third shot at a maiden win in race 7. A fast-closing third making her career debut in a seven-furlong Keeneland maiden last October, Magical Song surely is better than her sixth-place finish Dec. 31 in an Oaklawn maiden route.
King Ottoman will be favored over six foes in race 4, a nonwinners-of-two route allowance. It’s far from assured he repeats his Oklahoma Derby showing, and Bucktown, who won well at Tampa last out in his first try on dirt, is an interesting price play.
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