Thursday TimeformUS Highlight Horse: La Grotte deserves another chance going longer

Aqueduct | Race 2 | Post Time 1:42 p.m. (ET)

It's pretty obvious that Roman Goddess (#1) brings the best form into this $25,000 conditioned claimer, but she's awfully hard to trust as a win candidate. She's lost 18 starts in a row despite earning fairly consistent speed figures across those races. She did spend some time racing against tougher competition at the starter-allowance level, but she dropped into this condition last time and still settled for second. This is arguably a slightly weaker field than that one, so she makes plenty of sense. I just can't endorse her at any kind of short price given her propensity to settle for minor awards.

The logical alternative is Harlan's Bond (#5), who ran well for this condition two back, albeit settling for second in a pretty soft spot for the level. She's now getting needed class relief after moving back up to the N2X statebred allowance level off the claim last time. She's just always been a cut below those horses, so dropping back down to this kind of spot makes sense. I'm just still a little bothered by how poorly she ran last time off the claim for Gustavo Rodriguez, though he did take blinkers off for that start and now puts them back on, so perhaps it's equipment she needs.

My top pick is La Grotte (#3), who is actually moving up from the $16,000 beaten claiming level, where she recently settled for fourth. She obviously has to run a bit better than that if she's to beat this field, but I'm intrigued by her stretching out in distance. She did try a mile two back, but that came against much tougher starter allowance competition, and she was sent off at upwards of 50-1. She didn't even run that badly to earn her typical speed figure against more advanced competition. This mare looks and moves like a horse who should relish route distances, and she's only gotten limited opportunities to try them. Her trainer, Robert Johnston, is highly effective stretching horses out and is an excellent 43 for 148 (29%, $2.63 ROI) in dirt routes over the past 5 years.