Tibr invades for turf allowance

The long and short of it is that short races attract more entries than long races in North America. The New York Racing Association, knowing this and trying to attract more horses to longer races, offers a $90,000 purse in Friday’s sixth race, a 1 ¼-mile grass race, compared to an $87,000 purse in the eighth race, at six furlongs on turf.

Race 6 is a first-level allowance, race 8 is a third-level allowance, and despite the rich purses neither spurred an unusual amount of interest from horsemen stabled at the track or within comfortable shipping distance.

The sixth race got just seven entrants, with one entered to run only on the main track. The eighth brought out eight entrants, but two of those are for the main track only, and a third, Life in Shambles, has made all his recent starts on dirt.

The local forecast calls for clear conditions Thursday and just a 20 percent chance of precipitation after 3 Eastern p.m. Friday, so these races likely remain on turf.

Easily the most interesting entrant in race 8 is Tibr, an American-bred son of Distorted Humor who made five starts in England during his 2-year-old season in 2016 and was housed in the barn of English-born American trainer Graham Motion when he finally got back into action in 2018. Motion got one start out of Tibr, a poor dirt-sprint performance in May 2018, before Tibr went back on the shelf for a good long while. Finally back in action (and back on turf) May 24 at Pimlico, Tibr got into a race-long pace war and still managed to prevail by a nose at odds of 13-1.

Tibr is stabled with Motion at Fair Hill in Maryland, from which a trip to Laurel, Delaware, or Monmouth can be more easily made than a van ride to Belmont, and the mere fact of Tibr’s presence in Friday’s feature makes him worthy of note at something close to his 10-1 morning-line odds. He could get a more relaxed trip this time than last and would not have to improve monumentally to beat shorter prices such as Dr. Shane, Vici, and Mai Ty One On.

Race 6, the 10-furlong allowance race with the stakes-class purse, might, to no one’s surprise, have a Chad Brown-trained favorite, Militiaman, who steps up a level in class after winning a maiden race over this same distance by a head May 9. Brown is having a typically excellent meet, with 32 wins and a 29 percent strike rate, and it’s curious to find that in turf-allowance races at this meeting, his runners have gone only 1-0-2 from seven starts, according to DRF Formulator stats.

Hierarchy, who could be the second betting choice, has gotten four cracks at first-level allowance foes since winning a 10-furlong maiden turf race in October at Belmont. He’s been second and third in two such races at this meet, and perhaps Friday is his turn.

◗ Beginning July 3, the late pick five at NYRA tracks will be available for all bettors across the country, the company announced Wednesday. Since the inception of the wager at the beginning of the 2016 Saratoga meet, it was restricted to horseplayers who had a NYRA Bets advance-deposit wagering account or those who wagered ontrack or at an in-state simulcast facility.

– additional reporting by David Grening