Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Fountain of Youth, Gotham, Davona Dale

Some hold that a good betting race is one with a large field that lacks standouts. Sometimes, however, a large field lacking standouts simply is inscrutable, which appears to be the case in many of the Saturday stakes at Gulfstream. A couple of more obvious Florida horses, though, might offer value, and there’s good reason to get involved in the Aqueduct feature.

Fountain of Youth

On Beyer Speed Figures, second-time starters Speak Easy and Victory Avenue are the fastest 3-year-olds in Florida. Dornoch won an unusually strong renewal of the Remsen last December, his stock rising when Remsen runner-up Sierra Leone tallied smartly in his 3-year-old debut, the Risen Star. Those dynamics combine with an untimely fever to yield what I’m guessing will be a fair price on Locked.

Locked was supposed to launch his season in the Sam F. Davis at Tampa Bay but reportedly caught a virus that caused him to miss a key workout in early February. Locked, however, already had been breezing at Palm Beach Downs since Dec. 12, and his post-virus drill Feb. 16 was as good as I’ve ever seen from Locked, though, to be fair, I’ve only watched him work on video. Recorded as an easy half-mile, Locked worked strongly inside the older horse Expressman, galloping out almost all the way down the backstretch to the far turn.

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Locked was a very good 2-year-old while strongly hinting he’d be a much more polished product at age 3, and I believe he can demonstrate that in his comeback start. Belatedly untracked in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, he finished with good energy, and while Locked will prefer a longer homestretch than Gulfstream’s, there’s ample pace to set up his run from the three-eighths pole to the wire.

A long price in the Fountain of Youth? No. A lock? No. But Locked, the best horse in the race, will be relatively overlooked.

Gotham

One can admire a horse’s ability and acknowledge their potential, but still view them as a terrible wagering prospect in a given race.

So it is with Just a Touch in the Gotham, where the once-started Fair Grounds maiden winner is listed as the 5-2 favorite and probably will wind up meaningfully shorter than that.

Just a Touch in his one race, and from workout video, has shown more raw ability than any of his Gotham rivals. He’s the Gotham runner most likely to impact a Triple Crown race. And yet his presence here offers an opportunity not to bet on him, but to bet against him.

Between the high debut Beyer, the obviously strong works, and the fact Brad Cox-trained horses like this have become inherently negative value, Just a Touch gives a jolt of value to every other horse in the race.

Just a Touch ships out of town for his second start, has only been six furlongs, and has enough pace that he’s likely to get involved in an intemperate tempo – a recipe for vulnerability.

With rain and fast fractions forecast, Capital Idea looks like the right colt to capitalize on conditions. His Christophe Clement-trained stablemate Deterministic at first caught the eye. A debut winner at Saratoga, he ships in from Florida to try the Gotham following a long break. Intriguing.

But Capital Idea is nearly three times Deterministic’s morning-line price and more clearly suits the spot. While hard-ridden on the way to his blowout maiden win, he traveled much better from the start of that sloppy-track mile than he had a month earlier in his debut.

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Capital Idea returns with three works and looks like a colt quietly on the rise. I expect him to drop to the tail of the field, which might be the right place to be if even half of the on-paper pace shows.

Davona Dale

Just F Y I is an unbeaten champion, yet I expect Leslie’s Rose to be favored in the Davona Dale, and Just F Y I just might offer value in the win pool.

On figures, Leslie’s Rose is a far faster horse than Just F Y I has yet beaten, but Just F Y I will be up to the challenge. There’s only workout video from one of her breezes this winter, and while it wasn’t an especially fast drill, Just F Y I made a fantastic impression. It’s fair to question the strength of the horse she beat last year, but this filly is set to take a leap of her own.

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