Smack Smack preps for Cornhusker Handicap in Rasmussen Memorial
Smack Smack will attempt to win the Grade 3 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap for the second year in a row by prepping Monday in the Jim Rasmussen Memorial at Prairie Meadows. But as good as Smack Smack was last year, he seems no more likely to win the Rasmussen than a bevy of other horses.
The 1 1/16-mile Rasmussen, in fact, came up with just about as deep and tough a field as one will find for a race with a $65,000 purse. The field is 10 strong and includes several very plausible winners and a bunch of horses with speed.
Smack Smack doesn’t have speed, and the race shape could work in his favor, but there are other reasons to be skeptical.
Trained by Don Von Hemel for Dream Walkin Farms, Smack Smack won two stakes and placed in three others in a 2016 campaign during which he earned $427,366. But Smack Smack could finish only a close fourth in the 2016 Rasmussen, in great part because the race is 110 yards short of his ideal trip of nine furlongs.
All three of Smack Smack’s runs this year have come at 1 1/16 miles, and Smack Smack has looked pretty much like his steady, grinding self, but there’s a good chance that he will come to a peak in the Cornhusker, and come up short Monday.
Code West won this race by a neck a year ago and looks close to Smack Smack’s equal at 1 1/16 miles, and while Code West hasn’t raced since January, he won the 2016 Rasmussen while coming back from an even longer break.
Third in the 2016 Rasmussen was 2014 Iowa Derby winner Jessica’s Star, who won the Bosselman Pump and Pantry/Gus Fonner Stakes last month at Fonner Park while making his first start following a barn change and a winter break. Modest improvement Monday gives him a chance, and Way Striking, who was third in the Bosselman, also can’t be ruled out.
American Dubai would be worth a play at his 8-1 morning-line odds. The 4-year-old displayed a mix of speed and substance early in his 3-year-old season before going off form, and he drops in class after fading to fifth in the Grade 3 Texas Mile last out. American Dubai failed to make the lead that day and appears to need it for his best, and bouncing back to his best winter and spring form at Sunland Park would give American Dubai a chance to wire this field.
