Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Fayette, Bryan Station, Forty Niner
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It’s a good card on closing day at Keeneland, a decent one at the Belmont-at-Aqueduct meet, but a largely quiet Saturday of North American stakes racing. Just wait a week.
Fayette
Big stakes fields have been the rule at this Keeneland fall meet. As a nine-furlong dirt race for older horses, the Fayette seems like the kind of race to get eight entrants and it attracted 14.
Lots of horses, lots of pace. The fleet Film Star is expected to be scratched and race in the Forty Niner in New York, but first also-eligible Gasoline replaces speed with speed.
Owners, trainers, and jockeys, as well as handicappers, can read a racing form. Sometimes these pace-filled affairs on paper become grab-fests on the track, connections seeking to avoid a compromising duel. Changing a horse’s natural style doesn’t usually end well, and with Best Actor, Law Professor, Speed Bias, Twilight Blue, and Giant Game in the gate, the Fayette almost has to unfold at an intemperate tempo.
Trademark doesn’t want to be too far behind but showed in the Lukas Classic that he can track a strong pace and still finish. The 4-year-old looks like a steady improver just hitting his peak, and even as a logical contender, he won’t be an especially short price, something like 4-1. Trademark, beating lesser foes, won well over this surface last October and is very likely to turn in a competitive performance. He does have to work out a trip from an outside draw, and has a predilection for waiting on horses in deep stretch.
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I’ll guess Happy American plays the role in the Fayette that Clapton did in the Lukas Classic, running Trademark down in final strides. At 15-1, his morning-line price, that’s a value-laden guess, because Happy American, at his best, fits this race.
Twice over the last year Happy American has hit a peak: Last winter in New Orleans, where he won back-to-back stakes, and over the summer, with a fine third against tougher opposition than this in the Stephen Foster. If Happy American gets back to that Foster, I think he wins.
The gelding simply fell much too far off the pace in the Lukas Classic to have any chance of reeling in a horse like Trademark, especially in a comeback start he likely needed. A qualified horse set to improve at a distance he handles in a race that shapes his way? Sounds like a play.
Bryan Station
More Than Looks would have won this race but is expected to be scratched and take his chance in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, which leaves Talk of the Nation favored. Nice horse, doesn’t have to win.
Talk of the Nation has run well in his five grass races and hit a peak last month at Kentucky Downs. He does struggle to relax, and drawing the rail could lead to a tricky trip.
Appraise rates a chance at something like 7-2, but really, he has only one race, the Hall of Fame, pointing him out as a probable winner. Either he or Smokey Mandate will be second choice, meaning all the value Smokey Mandate possessed his last two starts, when he was competitive at 8-1 and 17-1, has vanished.
Gigante is the value and the play. Gigante was a bad 10th a year ago in the Bourbon, his lone start on the Keeneland course, but that was before he learned to be an actual racehorse this past summer. Gigante used to just run toward the front and see where that took him, but at Colonial Downs he completely changed his style, which led to a win over this one-mile trip in the Secretariat, where he beat two nice horses. Gigante has been breezing with some verve over the local lawn and can spring a fairly large-sized surprise.
Forty Niner
None of the New York stakes races do much for me, but the one horse who might be significantly undervalued is Dr Ardito in the Forty Niner.
Obviously, he has run up gaudy, pertinent course-and-distance stats mainly facing New York-breds, but with the right race shape, which seems forthcoming, Dr Ardito, still fresh this year, can hang with these horses.
Accretive, Everso Mischievous, and Film Star all look vulnerable and Dr Ardito’s price gets a bump owing to his eminently forgivable last-start dud at sloppy Parx.
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