Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Travers, Ballerina, Kentucky Downs Juvenile Sprint

Congratulations to American horse racing for going an entire week without an explosive scandal! Well done, and this weekend, we can turn our attention to a very appealing Travers card and the start of the short Kentucky Downs meeting.

Travers

Maybe I’ve gotten too locked into this opinion – but maybe I haven’t. In any case, it was after watching a Golden Tempo workout video a few weeks ago that I came to a stark conclusion: This is just a really good horse who is only going to improve through the remainder of the year.

Watching this horse work in August compared to late winter – it’s night and day. I know people don’t see him as a flashy breezer, and I guess he’s not, but I see power, control, professionalism, focus, and great energy.

Does he stand head and shoulders above the rest of this class? Absolutely not, and on raw talent his stablemate Englishman would win the prize. But at a mile and a quarter I strongly believe Golden Tempo’s the best sophomore we’ve got.

Yes, he got a grand setup in a Kentucky Derby that, as usual, was collapsing after an enervating early and middle pace. But what about the Belmont? Tasked with closing into a slow pace, Golden Tempo won with greater authority than at Churchill Downs. That means two things: The colt continues to improve, and 10 furlongs, regardless of pace, is clearly his best lick.

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No prep for Golden Tempo. So what? He did not, in the end, miss very much training, and at the time of his illness clearly had reached peak fitness. Once Golden Tempo got back onto a breeze pattern, he has neatly cleaved to it. I just don’t believe missing the Jim Dandy means Golden Tempo misses the mark in the Travers.

It would be one thing spouting all this support for a Derby and Belmont winner who would be an odds-on Travers favorite, but that’s not the case at all. While the sporting world seems to have quickly warmed to trainer Cherie DeVaux, the racing world has not really done the same with Golden Tempo. Fair enough – he still has something to prove, I guess. But I think he proves it in the Travers.

Ballerina

I keep going back over the Ways and Means form. Those lofty Beyers. Her Saratoga record, which would be 6 for 6, not 5 for 6, had she not endured an abysmal trip in the Spinaway. Maybe she is just a rock-solid favorite who ought to be even lower than her 9-5 morning-line price.

But Ways and Means is a 5-year-old now. She’s not going to run any faster than she’s already run. And while the figure came back great from her last start, is Grand Job really, truly an elite sprinter? Could be. Depends to some extent what you think of Eclatant, who should have won her last start more definitively. My guess is Eclatant’s winter and spring peak won’t carry to late summer.

The horse with all the upside is 4-year-old Kilwin, who will offer fair value, and is the play to take down the mighty Ways and Means.

Realizing last year’s Test did not come up an especially strong race, and that it had an outside closing flow, Kilwin fell on her face out of the gate and still got home. And while Ragtime never took much of a step forward, I considered her a good sprinter at the time of the Test.

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Kilwin has never lost in three dirt starts – three of them, that’s all. That’s called an unexposed horse. Loved the comeback win at Ellis. Kilwin beat overmatched rivals, but the fact is she overmatched them in a race meant mainly to move her forward. No post-race work video, but she was breezing with aplomb before her return performance and has subsequently posted fast times.

Kentucky Downs Juvenile Sprint

Mid American sits at 20-1 on the morning line. I’ll take some – even at half the price.

This race lacks anything close to a standout, and I liked Mid American’s lone turf race, his second start, more than anything I saw from any of his rivals. His professionalism and rateable speed led to a perfect trip, but Mid American showed strong acceleration whizzing past the leader, winning by a wide margin in a 12-horse field. He finished off that 5 1/2-furlong contest like another eighth of a mile will only bring him forward.

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