Strobe favored to light it up again
The trainer Brad Cox this past Sunday rued the decision to race the 4-year-old route horse Zozos in the Louisiana Stakes on Jan. 21 at Fair Grounds rather than awaiting a third-level allowance. Zozos, the overbet Louisiana favorite, checked in seventh with no apparent excuse. The talented 4-year-old sprinter Strobe is sticking to the more conservative path, Cox and owner-breeder Godolphin eschewing a stakes start for a third-level allowance, the featured seventh race Friday at Fair Grounds.
“What I’m doing with him is exactly what I should have done with Zozos. I don’t like running lightly raced horses against very seasoned horses,” Cox said.
Zozos, coming off a second-level allowance win, was making his sixth start in the Louisiana. Strobe, also a second-level allowance winner last out, races for the fifth time, a small number for a 4-year-old. And Strobe gives off the vibe of a horse perhaps too fast for his own good. He earned an elite 99 Beyer Speed Figure easily winning his career debut in May 2022 but didn’t start again until last October. His first-level allowance score in his Keeneland comeback win was a lopsided affair, but Nov. 12 at Churchill Downs in a second-level allowance contested on a wet track, Strobe finished a well-beaten second at odds of 1-5. Cox ran Strobe back Dec. 22 at Fair Grounds and Strobe returned to his dominant ways, leading from the start and winning by six lengths with a 105 Beyer.
“Hopefully this is the next step to bigger and better things,” said Cox.
Maybe it is, but Strobe has yet to demonstrate he can put together two top races without a substantial break, and at something like 2-5 on Friday, perhaps he’s worth opposing.
Five others are entered in this six-furlong dash, and the two inside horses, Therideofalifetime and High Cruise, have enough early speed to at least make Strobe work a bit to get to the front. And if that’s the way things unfold, Tulane Tryst will have a chance to rally and post a mild upset.
Tulane Tryst is one of those “more seasoned” horses that Cox sought to avoid. The 5-year-old has made 10 starts and hit a Beyer peak of 96 finishing second last March in the Whitmore Stakes at Oaklawn Park.
Out of action for several months following a start on May 4, Tulane Tryst returned Dec. 26 in the Richard Scherer Memorial Stakes, and trainer Cherie DeVaux’s comments the week of the race should have steered bettors elsewhere. There was no ideal return spot for Tulane Tryst, she said, and the horse seemed a work or two away from really being ready to contend. That’s how Tulane Tryst performed, too, fading to seventh after tracking the pace as an underlaid 3-1 favorite.
On Friday, Tulane Tryst looks like the value – if you don’t quite believe Strobe is set to light it up again.
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