Weekend GamePlan for Jan. 18, 2020: Picks for Lecomte Stakes, Gasparilla Stakes, Sunshine Millions Turf

This is more like it.

There’ve been some dry stakes weekends this winter, but things are ramping up. Fair Grounds, which features the Lecomte for 3-year-olds and the Silverbulletday for 3-year-old fillies, is the Saturday hub, but there are playable stakes at Gulfstream and Tampa and, if you stare hard enough, even Laurel and Aqueduct.

Lecomte Stakes

A Derby prep with 14 entrants has to figure in this space, even though I can’t say I love a single horse, and this card is in danger of being conducted under wet conditions. Keep in mind that Lynn’s Map, owing to post 14, was to be entered Friday for the Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn and could be scratched here.

Scabbard is listed as the 7-2 morning-line favorite, a tepid chalk, and deservedly so. If you toss Scabbard’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile flop, which isn’t that hard, given the very tricky Santa Anita racing surface that BC Friday, he looks very competitive off his 2-year-old stakes form. But I’m just not sold on Scabbard, who shipped to Fair Grounds from Florida last week and got a work over the local surface.

On paper, there should be a robust early and middle tempo, with Sycamore Run, Bango, and Shashashakemeup all likely to go forward at a good clip from outside draws. That leaves the secondary pace – Jack the Umpire, New Eagle, Mr. Monomoy – tracking behind, and don’t be surprised to see some middle-moving from a horse unwilling to relax.

If they really go at it, get a half-mile, say, in 47 seconds, deep-closers like Enforceable, Excession, and Finnick the Fierce should have a real chance. The latter horse lacks a right eye, and thus will spend a good part of his trip trying to find his way to the outside.

I’ll eschew both the speed and the true late-runners and side with pace-stalker Silver State, who, unfortunately, probably is going postward well below his 5-1 morning line. Silver State has started his career with two very solid performances; Relentless Dancer, with whom he dead-heated first out, is a Louisiana-bred, but a very talented one; and Necker Island, whom Silver State just failed to catch, also has high-level ability. The looming question: Did Silver State not run past those rivals because he lacks seasoning and mental maturity, or does he not want more than a sprint distance? He’s a robust animal who looks like a route horse, and he’s bred like a route horse, so I’ll guess he’ll end up being a route horse.

Gasparilla Stakes

This is a very interesting renewal of Tampa Bay’s seven-furlong fixture for 3-year-old fillies.

Swiss Skydiver is the 7-2 morning-line favorite and indeed figures to be the chalk after two encouraging Kentucky races, neither of which I can fault. Maybe Swiss Skydiver is a cut above, but nearly every filly in this race has evidenced some meaningful talent, and from among that mass I’m especially interested in We the Clouds.

Trainer Tim Hamm doesn’t run many horses at Keeneland, and it was especially notable when We the Clouds went off at 2.4-1 debuting against 11 other maiden fillies in a six-furlong race last fall. She made that price look generous, turning in a thoroughly professional performance that was stronger visually than the solid Beyer Speed Figure and included a fast final furlong that bodes well for her chances here at seven furlongs. Hamm soon after that start shipped We the Clouds to Tampa, and surely this race has been the goal through a long series of strong-looking local works. We the Clouds’s dam is a sister to Tapa Tapa Tapa, who won the Suncoast Stake as a 3-year-old filly of 2017 while trained by Hamm.

Sunshine Millions Turf

Maybe March to the Arch will prove too much for this statebred-restricted bunch in the Sunshine Millions Turf. We’re talking, after all, about a horse with legitimate Grade 1 turf credentials from last year. There’s ample pace – including a dose from a March to the Arch stablemate – to set things up for March to the Arch or, at a slightly longer price, his stablemate Curlin’s Honor. Curlin’s Honor can win if he runs right back to his Artie Schiller performance, but that was easily a career best.

I can see a scenario where March to the Arch comes flying from the back and just fails to catch a horse who gets the jump on him – and that horse could be Muggsmatic. Muggsmatic already won the Claiming Crown Emerald this meet after a Jason Servis claim, and the horse third to him there, Tusk, took down the Grade 3 Tropical Turf last weekend.