Top of the Charts gets some class relief
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Top of the Charts should be favored while dropping into the seventh race at Woodbine on Friday. He will compete with a tag for the time in the seven-furlong main turf sprint.
Top of the Charts looked like he could be any kind winning his first two starts at Churchill Downs in the spring of last year. However, the 4-year-old missed the second half of 2022, and after struggling this spring on the dirt in Kentucky, he was sent here to trainer Kevin Attard.
Top of the Charts started three times against conditioned allowance types and $50,000 claimers here this summer. He ran third behind two sharp horses, Cotton and Artie, in a six-furlong Tapeta sprint on July 15. A month later, he closed for third behind a peaking There’s No Joe and Artie in a seven-furlong turf event.
When extending to about nine furlongs on the main turf on Sept. 16, Top of the Charts wound up seventh after saving ground over a course with an outside bias.
Top of the Charts meets easier non-winners of three Ontario-sired allowance opposition and $40,000 claimers on Friday, with Sofia Vives back aboard. The hot apprentice Vives is 4 for 14 at the meet for Attard, who has solid numbers going route to sprint.
Repeat the Heat, Gatling Gun, Sooner Lunar, and Guns n’ Rojas are other possibilities in the seventh, which is part of both pick fours on the nine-race card.
On the cutback from 1 1/16 miles, Repeat the Heat isn’t a prime win candidate, but the closer could factor into the exotics under apprentice Amanda Vandermeersch. Trained by Mike DePaulo, he secured third in his last outing around two turns on the inner turf, which came on the heels of a fourth-place finish on the Tapeta.
Gatling Gun struggled last year and this past June, when he finished sixth behind two of the top sprinters on the grounds, Patches O’Houlihan and Aim for the Sky, in a 5 1/2-furlong Tapeta dash. Exiting another layoff on Aug. 6, he awaited room behind the leaders in midstretch before getting up on the wire to beat $25,000 non-winners of two claimers going six furlongs on the main turf.
Rafael Hernandez replaces the suspended Emma-Jayne Wilson on the Barbara Minshall-trained Gatling Gun.
Sooner Lunar is making his second start as a gelding after getting softened up in a speed duel going 1 1/16 miles on the inner turf on Sept. 9. He could be construed as a live longshot with Sahin Civaci replacing the injured Jose Campos. Civaci is 2 for 6 for trainer Mike Doyle.
Guns n’ Rojas was competitive on the grass last year. He was promoted from fourth to second in a Sept. 12 dirt stakes for Ontario-sired 3-year-olds at Fort Erie after the top two finishers were disqualified from purse money for carrying the wrong weight. Leo Salles rides him for trainer Angus Buntain, who is taking the blinkers off Guns n’ Rojas.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.