Rocket Time lacks value but not talent

Rocket Time, who turned in one of the better two-turn dirt performances last season at Fair Grounds, makes his first start since April in the featured seventh race Friday at Fair Grounds.

Rocket Time has the outside post in a field of six 4-year-olds and up. The one-mile race on dirt has two allowance conditions and also is open to $62,500 claimers. Rocket Time, a four-time winner, already has gone past the race’s non-winners-of-three-races “other than” condition but qualifies under the “non-winners since July 8” condition, making this a cozy fit for the winner of the 2014 Tenacious Stakes in his only previous Fair Grounds start.

After winning the Tenacious two Decembers ago, Rocket Time returned for the $100,000 Essex at Oaklawn last February and ran below his best form. He turned back to a seven-furlong sprint in April at Keeneland, finishing third, but has not started since.

“We just gave him some time off, no surgeries, no nothing,” said Al Stall, who trains Rocket Time for owner Frank Fletcher. “He’s come back nice. I don’t know how he’s going to run off the bench, but he seems fit, and he’s doing everything right.”

DRF Formulator shows that Stall has done well with horses returning from layoffs of a half-year or longer in dirt races at one mile or longer. His record the last five years under those circumstances is 15-5-0-2 with a $2 win return on investment of $2.04. One-mile races finish at the sixteenth pole at Fair Grounds, and that should work well for Rocket Time, but he is a confirmed front-runner and could face pace pressure from Nates Mineshaft and Buggin Out. Being drawn outside of those pace rivals, however, should give jockey Jamie Theriot tactical options.

Rocket Time looks likely to be bet below his 2-1 morning line and unlikely to offer any value. Aside from Rocket Time, the Friday feature looks wide open.

Doctor Peter twice ran well enough to win this race last winter at Oaklawn, but his two races last fall following a long layoff were discouraging. Irish You Well’s three wins came at Monmouth, and his form has recently been sliding. Nates Mineshaft is years past his best form and should be hounded on the lead by Rocket Time, while Buggin Out exits a narrow win in a race restricted to Alabama-breds. That leaves Agent Di Nozzo, who is six races removed from a solid performance but has run well before at Fair Grounds and will like the short-stretch mile.

◗ Just before the Friday feature comes a first-level, two-turn allowance race for 3-year-old fillies carded for turf. The race drew a field of nine, including the main-track-only entrant Banner Waving, and could be moved to dirt depending on how much rain falls Thursday morning. If the race is rained off, Twirl Girl, second last out to the talented Lovable Lyss, looks like the one to beat. On turf, Inconclusive or Merry Memories rate as the most likely winner.