Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Royal Heroine, Bachelor, Woodhaven

This Saturday’s stakes racing is like the opening band on a seven-act bill. The headliners, in fact, aren’t coming out for another week.

Royal Heroine

This is the only graded race among the trio under consideration, and that, as much as an especially strong opinion, places it first on the weekly ledger.

Stay and Scam seems certain to be favored in this one-mile turf race. I still believe she is a sprinter. That’s not to say she can’t carry her speed just far enough to win the Royal Heroine, and she did well April 4 in the Wilshire Stakes to easily save second after she was headed mid-race and forced to come back along the rail, her rider surely using more horse than he hoped before the homestretch. Nadette, the easy winner, pulled a surprisingly tremendous final quarter-mile out of a hat to win the Wilshire going away. Nobody is confusing Nadette with Inspiral.

If Irresistible Force doesn’t keep Stay and Scam from an easy lead, trainer Phil D’Amato has three Royal Heroine entrants, and one of them likely keeps Stay and Scam from stealing this. That horse might or might not be Uncorked; either way, she’s the play.

Uncorked is the rare Australian horse to campaign in North America, and her first season on these shores, 2023, went well. She knocked out two allowance conditions two turf starts in a row, didn’t stay nine furlongs in the Athenia while also facing a higher class of horse, and showed a new, encouraging dimension sitting back and making one run Nov. 19 in the Forever Together.

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Clearly, she’s been sent west to try and nab a graded stakes win, and D’Amato does well under these circumstances. I can find no workout video for Uncorked, but she has been breezing steadily since March 6. This one-mile trip seems like what the mare wants, and Uncorked could easily be sitting on a career best in a division ripe for a fresh new player.

Bachelor

Even if Valentine Candy bounces right back to his winter Oaklawn form – and that is far from a sure thing – Bergen can take his measure in the six-furlong Bachelor Stakes.

I’d be skeptical of Valentine Candy coming back to Arkansas after a failed attempt at synthetic-surface racing March 23 even if there wasn’t a further factor to consider: This colt has been racing without any real break since he won his career debut July 22 at Saratoga. While Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen does great work keeping horses like this ticking over, it’s fair to believe that, at best, Valentine Candy hits his baseline Saturday.

Bergen holds far greater upside in just his fifth career start, third of 2024, and first since March 2. I’m throwing that most recent race, the Gotham, right into the rubbish bin: Bergen didn’t run a step over a sloppy track he appeared to loathe. Moreover, even a one-turn mile might be farther than this colt’s ideal distance.

He overcame a very wide run to win his debut at Keeneland last fall, and the Ohio-bred who beat him second out at Churchill, Who Dey, possesses open-stakes talent. No one is saying the six-furlong Jimmy Winkfield, which Bergen easily won, was some hot heat, but the runner-up didn’t embarrass himself in a recent Keeneland allowance race, and Bergen crushed him.

Bergen, whose April 13 workout video looked solid enough, probably requires a strong pace. He’s probably going to get one. I’m married to Bergen in the Bachelor.

Woodhaven

This is a reasonable spot to launch Carson’s Run’s 3-year-old campaign, and Carson’s Run will reasonably be favored off his 2-year-old form. My Boy Prince, second behind him in the “Grade 1” Summer Stakes, performed admirably in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, but not so much making his 3-year-old bow in Keeneland’s Transylvania Stakes. Early developing 2-year-olds often are not the cream of their 3-year-old crop.

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Carson’s Run, with two wins, has little choice but to come back in a stakes race. That’s not the case with Good Lord Lorrie, first-level allowance eligible in just his second career start. It’s a choice, not a necessity, that he returns from a long layoff in stakes competition.

Good Lord Lorrie raced professionally while hand-ridden to a comfortable Saratoga sprint win, and from the look of that performance and the general shape of his pedigree, this mile should be within his scope. No workout video, but the Florida breeze pattern suggests he is coming back strong.

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