Santa Anita: DRF Plus handicapping report for December 29, 2013
Race 1 |
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Race 2 |
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Race 3 |
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Race 4 |
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Race 5 |
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Race 6 |
Spot PlayBLUSHING MARTHA (#5, 10-1) remains at $32K claiming price paid in February while making 3rd start after long layoff & returning to SA downhill course over which she won for this price 10 months ago. Stalks leaders, gets 1st run on deeper closers. - Marcus Hersh
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Race 7 |
Spot PlayA series of snappy workouts by Richard Mandella-trained MUM (#6, 9-2) suggest the 2-year-old Tapit filly will fire first out. She is a sibling to G3 winner Hightap. -Brad Free
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Race 8 |
Robert Frankel Stakes by Marcus HershThis stakes division – California females 8-10 furlongs turf – has no established hierarchy at the moment. Tiz Flirtatious or Lady of Shamrock, and later in the year Egg Drop, ruled it most of 2013. (Marketing Mix was SoCal-based, too, but always had an agenda greater than local, sex-restricted graded stakes.) None are around now, and with no top, the division’s middle and bottom – namely, the stakes under discussion here – become difficult to discern, too. Three of the nine in the Grade 3 Robert Frankel – 3-1 morning-line favorite Customer Base, 4-1 Appealing, and 9-2 Stormy Lucy – are the main holdovers from 2013 era dominated by the aforementioned trio. Stormy Lucy is the one with the most appeal. Her 3-year-old form of 2012 up to an ill-advised run in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf forms the best set of performances among the Frankel entrants, and her 2013 campaign, hardly glittering, might not be quite so disappointing as on first glance suggests. The two early-summer tries were compromised, and the six-furlong Golden Gate synthetic comeback obviously a means to an end. Halo Dolly finished a distant second behind Stormy Lucy on Oct. 19 at Golden Gate and at her best was a horse capable of winning a race like this. The running line says Stormy Lucy lost by two and three-quarters while eighth in a deep (this era’s standard) Matriarch: I think she was beaten farther than that, but also could imagine the mile distance there being short of Stormy Lucy’s ideal. Recall that her best races of 2012 came at nine furlongs and farther. So there’s the case for Stormy Lucy being the best of the three easier-to-read established members of the division. It’s not the strongest case, and even if accurate, does not mean Stormy Lucy has to win the Frankel. The 9-2 morning-line price would be on the edge of what seems fair to find out. Nickels Wild would be reasonably priced at three-times her 15-1 morning line. The connections of Playful Humor and Champagneandcaviar, one imagines, would be thrilled with the wispiest stakes placing. Neither would I bite on 3-year-old Becky Lou: If you thought the 2012 American Oaks was soft, how about this year’s version? Gulsary and Moone’s My Name are the two left, and I picked them, in that order, second in third. Both are European imports whose overseas form ended in 2012, but who have limited North American exposure. Four-year-old Gulsary went off at 133-1 when she tried a Big Girl Race in the 2012 Prix de l’Opera, which says something about her standing overseas. She has yet to run as far as she probably wants in her three U.S. starts, and if that’s the case, her Dec. 5 allowance-race third at 8.5 furlongs might produce a solid boost. Moone’s My Name finished first to Gulsary’s third in the Hollywood allowance, and is 5 to Gulsary’s 4. In England she ran behind Breeders’ Cup winner Dank once and the good horse Thistle Bird several times. The Wilshire last April was a race a lot like this one, and in it Moone’s My Name rallied for third. The extra half-furlong of the Frankel might prove useful, but not quite enough to back Moone’s My Name on top.
Vulnerable FavoriteNot even sure CUSTOMER BASE (#7, 3-1) is the best horse from her barn in this race (I give Gulsary a better chance to win), much less the best horse in the race. She’s a touch suspect at this trip & might well already have hit her ceiling. - Marcus Hersh
Spot PlayOff a super third last out, GULSARY (#4, 4-1) “upset.” She broke last, trailed slow splits, lost ground into the lane, and finished well behind the gate-to-wire winner. Reunited with G. Stevens, she should love the mile and one-eighth distance. -Brad Free
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Race 9 |
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