Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Fire Plug, Sunshine Turf, Geisha
With the prospect of rain throughout the afternoon in New Orleans and a damaged turf course capable of accommodating just eight runners, Fair Grounds, the heart of North American racing Saturday, is a no-go zone for me.
I picked Brad Cox-trained chalk in the Louisiana (Zozos) and the Silverbulletday (Chop Chop) but look to beat the Cox favorite Instant Coffee in the featured Lecomte. Stretchout sprinter Bromley, who runs like a route horse and has upside at a price, got a narrow call, not a rousing endorsement.
Laurel Park also hosts a bevy of stakes race, and the weather there looks much better.
Fire Plug
It often seems like Norman “Lynn” Cash, an owner who began training in 2021, just is throwing substances at the wall hoping something sticks. Cash probably averages more starts per year with his horses than anyone, and his Beverly Park during 2022 made more starts, 30, than any horse in North America.
Thing is, Beverly Park held form all the way through a winning late December race at Fair Grounds, and when these Cash horses start thriving in a racing rhythm, they can do surprisingly well: Cash has a 20-for-74 record, a robust 27-percent strike rate, with dirt sprinters running back after a win.
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All this considered, Pirate Rick can win the Fire Plug at Laurel at a fair price. He’s 8-1 on the track’s morning line and will get a win bet from me at anything approaching those odds.
Six-year-old Pirate Rick actually showed ability years ago in the first starts of his career. Cash claimed him for $50,000 in June 2021 and had to wait until that November to run him back, and just as Pirate Rick got good early in 2022, he didn’t race for nine months.
Pirate Rick came back better than ever. In his comeback start, he set the pace and held strongly while finishing second to Radical Right, who came back with a good second in the $100,000 City of Laurel Stakes. Just six days later (c’mon, Lynn!), Pirate Rick threw in a clunker at Aqueduct, but he returned to dominate decent competition at Mahoning Valley and Mountaineer Park before hitting a career peak winning a high-end allowance three weeks ago at Aqueduct.
Game on the pace from the rail, Pirate Rick turned back a good horse, Sherriff Bianco, and looked comfortable doing it. He’s the speed of the speed here from an outside post and even turned in a fast interim work over the Laurel surface.
Sunshine Turf
The top four horses in this Florida-bred grass contest at Gulfstream Park – Me and Mr. C, Lure Him In, Max K. O. and Hot Blooded – are closely enough matched that the race should come down to trip. I’m guessing Max K. O. gets the best one.
Roaring Forties, in from Canada, stretches out from sprints and on paper is clearly the lone speed in the Sunshine Turf, but I see no evidence from several route tries going all the way back to his second career start in July 2019 that the gelding can turn his pace edge into a front-running victory.
Max K. O. will be the one closest to Roaring Forties; he ought to get the jump on his chief rivals and beat them to the wire. Max K. O. generally has struggled to pair up top performances, so it might be a good thing that he ran flat Dec. 15 in his return from a 14-week layoff. He’s 5-2 on the track’s morning line, but I expect Hot Blooded to be lower than his listed odds of 9-2, and Max K. O. could go off a tick or two higher.
Geisha
Award Wanted is the value in this statebred-restricted mile at Laurel, and while it might seem crazy suggesting she’s headed for a career peak as a 6-year-old making her 31st start, I think that’s in play.
Award Wanted didn’t even really find herself until 2022, and while she was solid enough last summer at Delaware Park, her best races came over the winter at Laurel. Back from a freshening Dec. 8, Award Wanted beat the open stakes-class Prodigy Doll at a 5 1/2-furlong trip short of her best. She’s since worked a bullet five furlongs and can upset Malibu Beauty and Intrepid Dream in this one-turn mile.
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