Mumbai, Lopez look like heavy chalk in turf sprint

First-level allowance races are the classiest fare on offer during an eight-race card Friday at Monmouth Park.

The card, first post 3 p.m. Eastern, is stuffed with tough-to-figure contests, and surface uncertainty complicates mid-week handicapping. While Friday’s forecast calls for sunny and pleasant conditions, severe storms that could bring more than three inches of rain to the area were possible Wednesday afternoon through Thursday afternoon. Three of Friday’s races are carded for turf, including one of the allowances, race 7, a five-furlong turf dash for fillies and mares 3 years old and up.

Mumbai, in from New York for trainer Christophe Clement, drew the rail and if the race stays on grass figures to go postward far shorter than her 5-2 morning-line odds. The expected betting action has as much to do with Mumbai’s jockey, Paco Lopez, as with her obviously contending form and the presumption of New York-circuit superiority.

Lopez missed the earliest portion of the Monmouth season but is running away with the jockey’s title, carrying a 75-43 lead over Isaac Castillo into this week’s action. Saturday, Lopez won half the 14 races at Monmouth, tying a record at the track, and since Aug. 1 his Monmouth mark is 29-15-11 from 85 mounts, a 34 percent strike rate. During the period, Lopez more than doubled Castillo’s second-highest win total, 14. Lopez doesn’t lack for Friday action, with mounts in seven of the card’s eight races.

He was not aboard Mumbai when the Street Boss filly shipped to Monmouth on June 13 and finished second in a turf sprint at this class level, but he did ride Mumbai to a maiden victory April 16 at Gulfstream. Mumbai last started July 16 at Saratoga, fading to seventh in a turf-sprint allowance where she was hooked into and eventually cooked by a speed duel. With pace entered to the outside, Lopez faces the choice of trying for the lead from post 1 or sitting behind another horse – the latter likely being the better choice.

Race 2, the day’s other allowance race, this one carded for six furlongs on dirt, should have Causeway Jones as a favorite, though he makes his first start since May 1. Causeway Jones debuted last December at Remington Park and won an open maiden race by more than seven lengths. But following a trainer change to Jerry Hollendorfer, he flopped the next month facing allowance company at Oaklawn. On went a set of blinkers and up went Causeway Jones’s performance level, though following two good races that strongly suggest he can win on Friday, Causeway Jones ended his spring campaign with a clunker in the Oaklawn Stakes. Off an encouraging string of local workouts, Causeway Jones should be fine going six furlongs in his first start back, though he figures to be overbet in the win pool.

◗ Wayne Potts enters this week’s racing leading 26-22 over Jose Delgado and Kelly Breen in the trainer standings, though it is interesting to look at a more recent sample of Monmouth training success. Between Aug. 1 and Sept. 1, Breen and Claudio Gonzalez topped the local ledger with eight wins each, while the barn of Douglas Nunn caught fire, notching seven wins, his 26 runners yielding a $3.52 return on investment. Potts went 5 for 27, while Delgado was 3 for 23.