Workout videos available for public viewing started popping up a few years ago, the most horseplayer-friendly tool to appear in a long time. Alas, their availability has waned in recent months. Yes, it takes resource allocation to pay camera people and sort videos. It’s worth it! Here’s hoping the powers that be start feeling that way at some point. San Vicente The work video discussion ties directly to the San Vicente, populated by lightly raced and rapidly changing early-season 3-year-olds. The only way to really see some of those changes comes through getting a peek at their morning activity. Thankfully, there’s plenty of video showing favored Buetane working. And after watching everything available over the last few months, I came away thinking Buetane’s worth trying to beat. Perhaps he’s merely lackluster in the morning, and perhaps the breezes came with intent and purpose I can’t know, but Buetane seemed to get outworked by every horse they put him with – even when the company started getting easier. Only his most recent drill left a favorable impression. That came Jan. 4, and while Buetane crunched a supposedly better horse, Desert Gate, the work came on Santa Anita’s synthetic training track – used only because of the SoCal deluge – and Desert Gate might not have handled it. :: Santa Anita Classic Meet! Get DRF Past Performances, Clocker Reports, and more. Acknowledgemeplz cuts back from a route and figures second choice. He has worked at least sometimes in blinkers and races in them for the first time Saturday. The shorter distance helps, but Acknowledgemeplz as a physical specimen doesn’t do much for me, and I’m going to let him prove he can run back to or better his maiden win. Another horse who doesn’t wow you in his works is So Happy. That helps explain why So Happy went off at 38-1 in his debut and lone start, an upset win at Del Mar. Granted, the two immediately behind him in that decently rated maiden sprint haven’t validated the form, but fourth-place Secured Freedom won very well Dec. 28. So Happy’s race impressed in a couple ways. First, when the jockey asked him between the three-eighths and five-sixteenths marker, the colt really leapt forward with a sharp move. And So Happy sustained that move to the wire despite racing four to five paths wide around the entire bend. He has subsequently kept to a very active work pattern (sadly, none of those are available on video) and one might happily take So Happy to win as third choice. Likely Exchange Half the battle over Turfway Park Tapeta comes down to finding horses who can handle the surface, and that makes Love Song an appealing enough play in the Likely Exchange. Love Song’s first nine races came on dirt and turf. None approached the performance level Love Song hit making her synthetic debut Dec. 10 at Turfway. After four first-level allowance defeats, Love Song not only cleared the condition, she won by more than four lengths. Frankly, the margin could have been wider. Probing up the fence around the far turn, Love Song found her path blocked twice, her jockey forced to wait until the three-sixteenths pole to find a seam and get off the rail. The acceleration Love Song displayed quickly going clear makes me think cutting back from 1 1/4 miles to 1 1/16 won’t prove problematic – now that Love Song has found her favorite racing surface. Gary Palmisano Sr. Memorial A lot of people like to knock Eclipse Award finalist Sierra Leone for his loss in March to the Louisiana-bred Touchuponastar. Granted, Sierra Leone didn’t come close to his peak that day, but Touchuponastar in Louisiana simply is a Grade 2-class dirt router. :: Big Action in the Big Easy at Fair Grounds! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. Just ask a horse named Benoit, who had to run against Touchuponastar in his last two outings. The most recent of those came Dec. 13, Benoit’s first start since May, a race Benoit surely needed. Put his 14-length loss down to that as well as the fact Touchuponstar won by nearly nine. Benoit has run in only route races his last 15 starts but finished off many of them like a horse who just might like this turn-back to six furlongs. Sixteen races ago, in fact, he won easily going 6 1/2 furlongs, albeit around two turns at Delta. Favored Geaux Sugar looks vulnerable off his December score, just as he was in this race a year ago. And in any case, he’s no Touchuponastar. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.