Southern California shippers prominent in nightcap

The last of eight races Friday at Golden Gate Fields could be a harbinger of things to come at the Bay Area track.

As long as Santa Anita remains closed for racing, Southern California horsemen will look north to run their race-ready stock, and half the eight entrants in the Friday nightcap at Golden Gate, a filly-and-mare maiden special weight mile, have shipped from Southern California.

Vegas Palm, one of the Southern California shippers, could be favored in this Tapeta Footings test, but Star of Africa could boost vertical exotics (exactas, trifectas, superfectas) and even juice up multi-race wagers landing on race 8 if she steps forward the way she might. Vegas Palm, trained by Gary Mandella, is a six-start maiden who’s been nibbling in two-turn maiden special weights, mainly on turf, since she debuted in March 2018. Her performance level is solid, but she lacks upside as well as a turn of foot.

Star of Africa, meanwhile, has raced only once, on Feb. 29 in a turf mile at Santa Anita. She broke slowly from the rail and was at the back of an 11-horse field before the first turn. Star of Africa wound up finishing sixth, but she was beaten only a little more than two lengths after turning in the fastest final quarter-mile in the race. She’s by Animal Kingdom, who relished synthetic surfaces during his racing career, and is trained by Paddy Gallagher, who won nine of 28 synthetic surface starts during 2019 at Golden Gate for a $2.59 return on investment. Star of Africa is a 3-year-old facing older rivals but gets an eight-pound weight break from the elder set.

Here’s a quick run through most of the rest of this card.

Race 1 – Rocky Roses figures favored dropping to $5,000 maidens from a pair of $12,500 starts, but he was worse in his second race than his first and has shown no finishing kick at all in either race.

Race 2 – Stats mean more when you dig deeper. For instance, trainer Frank Lucarelli shows a robust 24 percent strike rate from his last 51 starters racing for the first time after a claim. But most of Lucarelli’s success came in a three-month period last fall, and over the last year at Golden Gate, Lucarelli is 1 for 14 first after a claim. The history matters here because Lucarelli has first-claimed Ardenlee Star, who should be among the favorites. The strong preference here is for Little John, whose lone two-turn start in an eight-race career produced one of his better performances and came in a much tougher race than this.

Race 3 – Careful – there’s no speed in this $16,000 maiden-claimer and the likely favorite Silver Claim is a closer coming off an 11-month layoff with a recent gap in his work pattern.

Race 4 – In a race overloaded with front-runners the obvious impulse is to look for a closer, but sometimes it’s better to seek the speed of the speed than side with a marginal off-the-pace type. Never Think Twice might not be faster early than Trump Um, but then again, he might be, and trainer Manuel Baldilla has gaudy stats with horses that won their most recent start.

Race 5 – It’s been a little while, but trainer Ellen Jackson showed with four winning maiden-claiming first-time starters in 2015 and 2017 that she can have a young horse of modest ability ready for a career debut – a horse like Dark Proof in this $12,500 maiden-claiming dash.

Race 7 – The two favorites Joejoe’s Kingdom and Far West each is coming off easily the best performance of his career. It would be rash to expect two top showings in a row from $5,000 conditioned-claiming runners.