Weekend GamePlan for March 27, 2021: Picks for Florida Derby, Jeff Ruby Steaks, Golden Shaheen

It’s not just coast to coast stakes action this Saturday, but continent to continent, with the Dubai World Cup program leading into the Florida Derby card and, as a solid sidebar, Jeff Ruby Steaks over the Tapeta surface at Turfway Park.

The shortage of truly elite older dirt-route horses extends beyond North America, as this is one of the softer-looking renewals of the $12 million World Cup. Mystic Guide is an admirable beast (if a bit snippy around the barn) and merits favoritism, but I couldn’t support him at the likely odds. Neither do American runners Jesus’ Team, Sleepy Eyes Todd, or Title Ready get the blood boiling. I’d love to fish out some 30-1 shot (Ajuste Fiscal came closest) but in the end will play defensively, if at all. I will have a little something on price plays Golden Crusade and Speak In Colours in the Al Quoz Sprint.

Florida Derby

Having read several times what a modest work horse Greatest Honour is, I expected little from the video of his final Florida Derby breeze March 21. I liked it! Don’t care about the time or the workmate; the Holy Bull and Fountain of Youth winner moved well and comes into this test, his first try at 1 1/8 miles, which should suit him, in apparently rude health.

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That doesn’t mean I’m not trying to beat Greatest Honour. His last Beyer Speed Figure got an overnight upgrade after initially coming in at 83 and by no measure was that a fast race. Can Greatest Honour run faster, and does the figure do him full justice? Probably yes, and probably no. Yet a good part of the reason Greatest Honour looked so sharp in the final Fountain of Youth furlong related to the weakness of the opposition. To me, it’s hard not to see the Fountain of Youth and the Holy Bull as soft spots, and Greatest Honour’s lack of positional pace or a real turn of foot could eventually compromise him.

Collaborate won’t be a great price, not with the flashy recent race on his form, but I like him to beat the favorite. Collaborate lacks seasoning, with just two starts, but gives the appearance of a fairly professional colt, rating nicely on the lead in his excellent one-turn-mile maiden score last out. Offspring of his sire, Into Mischief, can come out short-coupled and sprinty looking, but this colt lives on the opposite pole: There’s a lot of him, he has a beautiful long stride, and all signs point to him racing even more effectively around two turns than one. He clearly gets first run on the chalk and the guess is Greatest Honour will have to work quite a bit harder to run him down than he did passing Collaborate’s stablemate Drain the Clock last month.

Jeff Ruby Steaks

My two main framing points for Turfway’s biggest race are 1) the pace, which almost has to be quick and contested, and 2) fading the horses coming out of the local prep, the John Battaglia Memorial Stakes. I expected to like the performances there of winner Hush of a Storm and runner up Like the King, but the former lugged in and leaned on the horses to his inside in midstretch, while the latter was under a ride on the backstretch. Hard Rye Guy had trouble, but again, I’m looking for horses coming from different vectors.

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Tarantino is listed at 3-1 off his Fountain of Youth fourth, but I prefer King’s Ovation, sixth-place finisher in the same race. King’s Ovation had some early trouble last out and wound up, in my view, much too close to the pace. The horse seems to prefer a relaxed trip, making one run, and the hope is he’s ridden that way here. He did have meaningful trouble in the Swale, a race that showed he’d progressed from 2 to 3, and he ought to able to save plenty of ground from this inside draw.

Golden Shaheen

The listed odds on this race are crazy, as neither Yaupon nor Wildman Jack will be nearly as high as their published prices. My hope is Yaupon goes off favored and Wildman Jack offers some value since I favor the latter over the former. Wildman Jack spent a couple months in Dubai last year, which counts for something, and his move from turf to dirt last out was revelatory, that Palos Verdes win, if anything, even better visually than it looks on paper, 104 Beyer and all.