Underhill's Tab can win first start back
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The price might not be great, but if you’re considering a bet on the featured seventh race at Fair Grounds, put it on Underhill’s Tab.
Three-year-old Underhill’s Tab hasn’t raced since April, but he was good a year ago at Fair Grounds finishing second in the Sugar Bowl Stakes and looks plenty good enough to win a first-level sprint allowance with a $17,500 claiming option.
“He’s fresh. Looking really good,” said Al Stall Jr., who trains Underhill’s Tab for Spendthrift Farm.
Someone associated with Spendthrift must be a fan of the 1985 movie Fletch, in which Chevy Chase portrays the title character. Sneaking into a country club, Fletch runs up a $400 lunch bill he charges to a family whose name he’s merely overheard at the club – the Underhills.
Underhill’s Tab, by Unified out of Mykindasaint, by Saint Ballado, also cost four hundred – as in $400,000, his purchase price at a March 2022 sale of 2-year-olds. Following the Sugar Bowl, Underhill’s Tab was stretched out to no great affect in a Jan. 22 allowance race, finishing a distant sixth. About 10 weeks later, he ran flat in a Keeneland sprint, which led to an extended layoff that ends Thursday.
Underhill’s Tab’s work pattern suggests a horse blooming in December, and Stall said the colt appears to be past whatever niggling issues led to his form decline earlier this season. With Colby Hernandez named to ride, Underhill’s Tab is one of seven entered to race six furlongs. He was comfortable stalking the pace as a younger, inexperienced horse, and a similar approach could lead to the right trip Thursday.
Concept, another long-layoff comeback horse, has been posting quick works and figures to show speed from post 2. Drawn on the rail is Charlie’s Creed, who on Nov. 25 went wire to wire in a Fair Grounds maiden sprint. Underhill’s Tab can sit just off those two and get first run on Pro Oxidant, who won his career debut this past fall by seven lengths at Churchill Downs going seven furlongs but in two subsequent starts failed to dent the first-level allowance condition.
The morning line lists Pro Oxidant as the 3-1 favorite, Underhill’s Tab the co-second choice with Charlie’s Creed. If that’s the win price on Stall’s horse at post time, it’d be prudent to put your own money down, not the Underhills’.
◗ Dalika, who won the Grade 1 Beverly D. in August and most recently captured the Grade 2 Cardinal Stakes, is training in Ocala, Fla., for her likely career finale in the $500,000 Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf Invitational on Jan. 28 at Gulfstream Park, Stall said. Dalika is a German-bred 6-year-old by Pastorius campaigned by Bel Mar Equine.
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