Seven familiar rivals meet in S.W. Randall Plate
The $50,000 S.W. Randall Plate at Hastings on Saturday is unusual in that the seven entrants faced each other in the British Columbia Cup Classic on Aug. 7.
Headlining the group will be B.C. Cup Classic winner At Attention, who is trained by Barbara Heads. Since the beginning of 2022, At Attention has raced at Hastings eight times with five wins and three seconds for his efforts.
The son of Shanghai Bobby is the only runner in 1 1/8-mile Randall Plate to have raced since the B.C. Cup Classic. On Aug. 26, he turned up at Century Mile in Edmonton and finished a troubled fourth in the Speed to Spare Championship Stakes run over 1 1/4 miles.
In the Speed to Spare, At Attention lacked racing room around the final turn and was bumped while attempting to get through a hole near the top of the stretch before finding additional trouble nearing the finish line.
“At Attention was definitely best in Alberta with a clean trip,” Heads said. “He has bounced back well, and while the spacing is not ideal, I expect him to be on his game.”
Soaringforthesun got away with soft splits in the B.C. Cup Classic. The Edgar Mendoza trainee has drawn post 2 as compared with post 8 in the B.C. Cup Classic. The gelding could lull everyone to sleep on the lead.
Arollercoasterride has changed barns since finishing a close third in the B.C. Cup Classic and is now trained by Terry Jordan, who will add blinkers to the 4-year-old’s equipment. The son of Curlin is no stranger to the early lead, but he did manage to lose the B.C. Derby by a head, the B.C. Premier’s by a nose, and a later allowance race by a head when racing up front last fall.
The Saturday card also includes the Delta Colleen Stakes, named after the belle of British Columbia who won 18 stakes at Hastings. The presence of the great mare Infinite Patience has intimidated all but three other entrants, a pair of which are recent claims for mid- and low-level tags.
The only serious sparring partner for Infinite Patience is We B Three, who can boast that she finished within a half-length of Infinite Patience when they last met Aug. 7. The contest was more one-sided than the margin suggests as jockey Antonio Reyes never drew his stick aboard Infinite Patience while Antonio Perez used his crop eight or 10 times on the runner-up.
Like her male counterpart in the Heads stable, Infinite Patience went to Alberta on Aug. 26, winning the Northlands Distaff Handicap. Those who saw the race will recall that the big mare appeared to have her hooves full in the stretch with an adversary named Orange Theory, who was 74-1 on the board. In hindsight, that foe probably shouldn’t have been those odds given the considerable trouble and race shape that worked against her in her prior start.
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