Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Razorback Handicap, Royal Delta, Barbara Fritchie
New Orleans takes center stage this weekend, and not because Mardi Gras comes Tuesday. The road to the Kentucky Derby passes 2 1/2 miles north of Bourbon Street with the Risen Star Stakes. The last of 13 races at Fair Grounds drew 14 entrants. Have fun with it. Two Emmys in the Fair Grounds Stakes is my best stakes opinion on the card, though Big Blue Line can upset the Mineshaft.
Did I expect to be touting John Terranova-trained horses in two states, neither of them New York, his regular base? Racing is a funny game.
Razorback Handicap
It was with glee I played against Ginobili last month in the Fifth Season Stakes, believing he was strictly a horse for the Del Mar course and vulnerable at a two-turn mile. Whoops. Ginobili dominated. But here, he’s facing tougher foes going a half-furlong farther while facing the prospect of a more challenging trip; I’ll stand against him again.
West Will Power is listed as the morning-line 2-1 favorite. No thanks. Though this horse hit a peak last fall, it’s hard to see him sustaining, much less rising, since West Will Power is a 6-year-old now. His last three front-end trips were remarkably comfortable, and with Ginobili and other speed entered, he’s not getting things so easy Saturday.
I’ll back Law Professor and hope for at least the listed 7-2 price.
Law Professor has been a good horse for a long time but hit a new level last fall and this winter. He’s better on dirt than turf yet still won a comeback race at Kentucky Downs, and his surprisingly competitive second to elite Life Is Good in the Woodward wasn’t fluky.
In the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, Law Professor, for whatever reason, went flat going around the far turn at Keeneland. With a short run to the wire, that cost him any chance to win, Law Professor found his stride again after turning for home and finished as well as anyone.
I think he wants a little more ground than a mile, as certainly appeared to be the case in his last-out laugher, the nine-furlong Queens County. Law Professor projects for a ground-saving, stalking trip, and I could see him hitting a new peak in the Razorback.
Royal Delta
You know what rhymes with overrate? Ninety-eight.
I believe the 98 Beyer that Kathleen O. earned winning the Gulfstream Park Oaks last April overrates her baseline performance level. Her soundly beaten fifth in the Kentucky Oaks hits nearer the mark in my mind, and I don’t think Kathleen O. has to win the Royal Delta.
Before you say a slow pace compromised the filly last out in the Comely, remember that the Aqueduct surface has played like a plowed field for months. The pace, in fact, wasn’t especially slow, and the 94 Beyer earned by race winner Sixtythreecaliber, a no-show next out at Sam Houston, is a radical outlier in her form.
Classy Edition last month blew past her previous best making her first start since April. Maybe she’s a changed horse now, but that was a one-turn race where she ran on Lasix. Now, it’s two turns, no Lasix.
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I thought Midnight Stroll, trained by Terranova, quietly had a solid, improving 3-year-old season in 2022, and her powerhouse Tampa Bay work pattern suggests she’s ready to take a step forward in her 4-year-old debut. Difficult to impossible circumstances were attached to three losses last year, and Midnight Stroll could be in line for a favorable stalking trip at a fair price.
Barbara Fritchie
The betting public figures to go hard for Pass the Champagne, and Union Lake, another Terranova charge, is the one I want here.
I doubt Pass the Champagne is especially well meant cutting back to seven furlongs from a gut-wrenching two-turn comeback run last out at Tampa. The mare has made but two starts since April 2021 and connections surely are desperate to get her a first stakes win before the next setback.
While Union Lake has a no-Lasix question to answer, she easily surpassed good earlier form returning from a two-month layoff Dec. 31, when she crushed in-form favorite Rossa Veloce in an Aqueduct allowance. She’ll carry her speed seven furlongs and is well drawn for a perfect trip.
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