Poster makes return at odds too short to consider
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The mini turf festival at Churchill Downs this week continues Sunday with the featured seventh race, a third-level allowance with a $100,000 claiming option carded for one mile on grass.
This comes one day after the River City Stakes, a 1 1/8-mile grass race for older horses, and two days after Churchill filled a fourth-level allowance for older turf milers.
The Sunday feature marks the return of Poster, a Kentucky Derby hopeful earlier this year before being taken out of training in April. Poster, a Godolphin homebred trained by Eoin Harty, won his first three starts, the last of them the Grade 2 Remsen last December, then finished third in the Sam Davis at Tampa Bay Downs and fourth March 22 in the Jeff Ruby over Turfway Park’s synthetic surface.
Poster hasn’t raced in more than seven months, hasn’t run on turf in 13 months, makes his first start against older horses, and has a top Beyer Speed Figure of 83. And if that, as the morning line forecasts, makes Poster the 5-2 favorite, he’d be an abysmal bet.
Idratherbeblessed cleared his third allowance condition by winning the Grade 2 Muniz Memorial in March and gets into this race via the claiming option. Even at a distance short of his best he’d offer value at his listed 5-1, though bettors will have to accept the fact he races for the first time since May 17, when he suffered a severe case of equine-induced pulmonary hemorrhage and was vanned off the course.
Both horses that trainer Mike Maker entered, Smokey Mandate and Judge Davis, merit consideration, while Miranda Rights, racing first off a claim by trainer Michelle Nehei, missed by a nose as a 40-1 shot at this level during the Keeneland meet.
◗ Brian Hernandez Jr., seriously injured on Sept. 21 at Churchill when the horse he was riding during a race broke down and fell, had hoped to return to action the week before the Breeders’ Cup, but while that didn’t happen, Hernandez now is ready to resume riding. He said Thursday that he’s been exercising horses during morning training and that he plans to ride Nov. 12 at Churchill.
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