Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup, Glen Cove, Maryland Million Lassie
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Three weekends out from Breeders’ Cup and focus grows ever narrower. But the second Saturday of the Keeneland meet features a Breeders’ Cup sort of opportunity for 3-year-old turf fillies.
Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup
I could only rule one horse, Will Then, out of win contention, and she could instead run Saturday at Woodbine. It’s a good-looking renewal of the QE II.
Laurelin is 5 for 5 and on the Beyer Speed Figures, visually, and in the way she finishes off her competition keeps improving. The last race showed a mile’s not her limit. Her touch of positional pace generally has kept her from trouble.
Nonetheless, I lean toward trying to beat Laurelin, and here’s why.
Her morning-line price, 5-2, seems like the most one could hope for. In her three starts this year, she has defeated a total of 15 rivals, facing just four and five the last two races, and Laurelin keeps beating the same horse, QE II runner Opulent Restraint. This race came up tougher. It also came up with little pace and could turn messy.
Through their common rival Opulent Restraint, you’d have to rate Fionn about the equal of Laurelin. I keep waiting for Fionn to take a step back, and after what looked like a demanding win in the Dueling Grounds Oaks at Kentucky Downs, this might be the time.
Daisy Flyer earned consideration and should make her way into vertical and horizontal wagers. She has always outrun her odds, and even winning the Lake George looked like a filly who wants more ground. She had plenty of run along the fence through the homestretch of the Dueling Grounds Oaks before getting stopped cold.
It’s the horse who lacked room racing just outside of her with a furlong and a half remaining, Destino d’Oro, that I really like.
The more I watched the Dueling Grounds Oaks, the more it became clear Destino d’Oro didn’t have a fair shot, and she gives a brief burst to the wire when finally clear of traffic.
It’s hard to overstate how much this filly showed in her first four starts. Given the trip, she never should have come close to winning the Jessamine. Watch her Churchill comeback race and at the quarter pole there’s no way she gets up.
What’s that? Suddenly she can sit second behind a legitimate pace in the Pucker Up? That’s a huge positive. That’s definitely one trip that can win the QE II, but I think Destino d’Oro can win in other ways. Watch this filly’s dirt works and you can see another reason she’s so heavily bet. I doubt she’s as high as 8-1 here, but she still should be playable.
Glen Cove
I remember when “The Fonner Flash” showed up at Churchill this spring. Don’t know how Flat Out Time wound up in Nebraska, but she did.
That $250,000 auction price comes from her sale as a foal in 2022. At a yearling auction, she failed to meet a $185,000 reserve. Her first published works came last summer at Prairie Meadows.
Works form the fulcrum for my positive opinion here. Flat Out Time has run fine on dirt. Praying, who beat her last time, somewhat flattered the Prioress form beating older horses in the TCA at Keeneland, though that race came up slow.
The trainer, George Weaver, has found all sort of success with turf sprinters, and he breezed her on grass Aug. 8, about three weeks before the Prioress. I thought she worked really well, and that drill suggests Weaver had this surface switch in his back pocket all along.
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Maryland Million Lassie
Doc’s Miracle isn’t hapless. She runs in this very race. Witchyness really had no business running her down July 19 at Delaware.
I doubt Witchyness has to fall as far back as she did in that, her lone start. She broke from the rail, leaned to the left, and – watch out! – there was the gap onto the main track. The jockey had to correct her, and by the time Witchyness straightened up, the rest of the horses were well on their way.
She fell much farther behind than you can tell from the running line, and a first-time starting 2-year-old can’t usually make a sharp, wide turn move and sustain it to the finish. Witchyness did.
I think she’s been pointed to this spot for a while. Those three recent Parx Racing works a week apart – bang, bang, bang. Witchyness should take a considerable step forward Saturday.