Seguro heads field full of potential talent

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Illinois-bred allowance races don't figure to be hotbeds of budding stakes talent. Usually, the best one can hope is to find a decent prospect or two in such spots, and for an Illinois-bred entry-level allowance, featured race 8 on Tuesday at Arlington Park is brimming with potentially decent stock. Five lightly raced horses with at least some measure of talent - Hoodwinked, Grazie, Captain Jack, Park Boys, and Seguro - are among the 12 horses in the main body of a race carded for about one mile on turf.

Hoodwinked and Grazie already have won turf races, while Park Boys finished an excusable sixth in his grass debut, and Captain Jack and Seguro are set to try turf for the first time on Thursday.

Even though he is making his turf debut and is stuck with difficult post 10, Seguro could be a mild favorite. Seguro has finished first or second in 4 of his 5 career starts, and exits a fourth-of-nine finish in the Springfield Stakes here last month. Seguro is by Cactus Ride, a passable grass sire, and out of a mare by solid turf influence Lord at War, and his late-running style in one-turn main-track races could easily transfer to a middle distance on turf.

Captain Jack faced open allowance horses in his most recent race, and while his pedigree is less recognizably turf-slanted than Seguro's, it might actually be better. Captain Jack is by Saarland, but his dam, Misty Gina, has produced two winners on turf.

Chris Block trains both Hoodwinked and Park Boys; the former will get more betting play than the latter, but Park Boys could have a chance at a price Thursday. Hoodwinked, a Team Block homebred by Successful Appeal, scored a front-running maiden win here June 18 while making his turf debut. Park Boys finished sixth behind Team Block's Ice Climber in a June 19 entry-level turf allowance, but set the pace on a wet, laboring course that day, and could prove much more effective racing from slightly off the pace on a course that is far firmer now than when Park Boys last raced.

Grazie, a 5-year-old who didn't make the races until this past spring, comfortably won his turf debut on May 18 at Arlington, and appeared to struggle over the wet going when he faded to 10th in the Ice Climber race. He could bounce back with a far more competitive performance Thursday.

Cannon's Call was beaten just a head by Ice Climber in his most recent start, but he has made 16 career starts, and has lost seven times in turf races against Illinois-bred entry-level allowance foes.