Russellin shortens up in Golden Circle

ALTOONA, Iowa – Friday’s $75,000 Golden Circle Stakes, a six-furlong event featuring seven quick 3-year-olds, will amp up the Kentucky Derby Eve excitement at Prairie Meadows.

With a trio of pace-fueling colts in Arizona shipper Lotsa Mischief, recent Oaklawn-based trailblazer Chairman Crooks, and Tampa Bay stakes winner Cool Cowboy expected to set rapid early fractions, the Golden Circle might fall right into the hands of its 2-1 morning-line favorite, Russellin.

Russellin, victorious in two straight 1 1/16-mile races at Oaklawn, turns back to six furlongs for his initial stakes try. Trained by Hillary Hartman and ridden by regular pilot Ken Tohill, who is off to a strong 10-for-45 start at this meet, Russellin will rely on his stellar turn of foot to mow down his rivals.

Cool Cowboy, who won the Dec. 7 Inaugural Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs and ran second, beaten 3 1/4 lengths, to fellow Golden Circle foe Mighty Brown in the Jan. 4 Pasco Stakes there, can get brave on an uncontested lead and will be tough if getting the best of the early skirmish. During his 12-race career, both of Mighty Brown’s wins came at Tampa Bay Downs for Tim Ice’s stable, and his relatively new trainer, Scotty McNair, hopes he can prove himself elsewhere.

Defying odds of 69-1, Da Winner Is put together a huge effort when finishing in a dead heat for second, a half-length behind Brewing, in Oaklawn’s Bachelor Stakes on April 11. Da Winner Is will try to build on that performance in his second start since his $40,000 claim March 23 by trainer John Hall from the high-percentage tandem of Midwest Thoroughbreds and trainer Chris Richard.

Along with Lotsa Mischief, Northern Contract has arrived recently from Turf Paradise, where he impressed when taking a March 18 sprint optional claimer by 5 1/4 lengths.

The Golden Circle, which got a $15,000 purse hike this season, is scheduled for 9:37 p.m. Central.