T D Dance tries to stay unbeaten in Friday's first race
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
The feature, such as it is, comes early on the Friday card at Fair Grounds. Race 1, carded for 2-year-olds at about 7 1/2 furlongs on grass and open to first-level allowance entrants or $50,000 claimers, is the highest-class fare on a nine-race menu.
Trainer Brad Cox had two nice winners last week – the 3-year-old filly Disobedient, who is bound for the Pago Hop Stakes, and the debuting Louisiana-bred 2-year-old Australasia, who got a 72 Beyer Speed Figure in a 8 1/4-length romp – and here sends out T D Dance, one of only six horses entered.
T D Dance, a son of Can the Man, makes his second career start after posting a two-length maiden win in a one-mile grass race Oct. 6 at Indiana Grand.
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“He’s a good-sized horse that has taken to the grass, and I think he’ll move forward,” Cox said. “He’s had plenty of time since he ran.”
Indy Tourist could be favored for trainer Mike Maker and jockey Adam Beschizza. He was all but eased in the Bourbon Stakes on Oct. 10 at Keeneland but races with Lasix for the first time in three starts and in his previous race finished third, beaten less than a length, in the $498,000 Kentucky Downs Juvenile. That performance followed a 15 3/4-length thrashing of turf-route maiden foes at Indiana Grand.
The other four can’t be ruled out, either. Johny’s Fireball won a Churchill turf-route maiden race in his most recent start, while Dyn O Mite went wire to wire in a Golden Gate Fields turf-route maiden for trainer Keith Desormeaux. Excess Magic exits a six-length Remington Park maiden win (which looks somewhat better on paper than on replay), while Spyglass most recently was a wide seventh in the Bourbon.
◗ Pixelate, most recently a troubled fourth in the Bryan Station Stakes on Nov. 6 at Keeneland, is being aimed at the $75,000 Woodchopper on Dec. 26, trainer Mike Stidham said.