Weekend GamePlan for Jan. 1, 2022: Picks for Smarty Jones, Sham, Jerome
Happy birthday, horses! Which is to say, “Happy New Year!” Here we go with the foal crop of 2019 beginning their march toward the Triple Crown, so it seems fitting to use three one-mile dirt races for freshly turned 3-year-olds in the first Weekend Gameplan of 2022.
Smarty Jones Stakes
The Oaklawn Park race has more entrants than the New York and California races combined, so we’ll begin here.
Don’t bother using the morning line as a guide; if you add up all the odds points, they go way, way, way over the maximum amount allowable. There are 15-1 shots that will be 60-1 and there’s going to be much more distinction in the group of 8-1 and 12-1 prices than is forecast in the line.
Fourteen horses, sure, but a grand total of one stakes winner, and seven horses stretching out from sprints. Not just that, but it’s really hard to say who, if anyone, is actually a good horse among this group. Ben Diesel looks to me like the most solid dirt-route stakes horse at this juncture and he’s all but eliminated after drawing post 14.
Kavod is the lone stakes winner, and his black-type success came sprinting over the Oaklawn track. I think he’ll regress off that sharp performance, and the horse just behind him last time, Higher Standard, did the opposite of flatter Kavod in the Dec. 27 Sugar Bowl at Fair Grounds.
Home Brew, from the Brad Cox juggernaut, is a route allowance winner over the surface but the comfortable lead he established there is highly unlikely here.
From a visual standout, Don’tcrossthedevil looked as good as any Smarty Jones entrant in his Remington allowance win. He accelerated so strongly past the three-furlong marker that he nearly blew the turn. But he’s changing barns off a private purchase and, even more concerning, his dam and siblings all were strictly sprinters.
Steve Asmussen runs three, all stretching out, and I’ll try one of them – All in Sync. Asmussen has gone sprint to route with 3-year-old stakes horses at Oaklawn nine times over the last five years, and eight of those horses finished third or better. All in Sync was one of the few runners from the barn who performed well at the Keeneland meet, and after showing speed in his debut there, he rated nicely just off the pace winning second out at Churchill Downs. That wasn’t a “wow” performance, but the colt did look handy and crossed the wire looking like he had plenty in the tank. The sire is a speed influence but the female family quickly goes to a great Phipps family that should impart sufficient stamina for All in Sync to get a mile.
Sham Stakes
I was high on Oviatt Class in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and while the colt was no match for Corniche, he did finish off the race decently and encountered a touch of trouble at the half-mile pole. Still, I’m taking Mackinnon to knock off Oviatt Class and a pair of Bob Baffert-trained runners in the Sham.
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Mackinnon improved steadily through the fall, impressed training up to the BC Juvenile Turf, and ran commendably in that race. His subsequent Santa Anita training track works – at least the two available on video – were excellent, and while his knee action is high like that of a grass horse, I’ll guess he makes the transition to dirt no problem.
Jerome Stakes
Cooke Creek won’t be much of a price in the Jerome, but bettors so far haven’t accorded him respect and he might yet go postward as value in the win pool. His sprint debut was eye-catching, especially from a scopey colt who looks like a route horse, and the runner-up he held off in the Delaware Park stakes was a sharp Monmouth Park winner who has talent. Rockefeller got the jump on him last time, but Cooke Creek, while racing a bit green, still stretched nicely to the wire, and with any sort of trip Saturday he ought to take the measure of his Jerome rivals.