Wellabled returns off long layoff at Arlington

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Well, that didn’t take long. The trainer Larry Rivelli, who won 155 races during the last two seasons at Arlington, went one for five on the meet-opening card of May 3 before showing off his firepower the next afternoon. Rivelli had entrants in four races on the May 4 program and won all of them.

This should be a running theme again at Arlington, where Rivelli has more than 80 horses stabled. He has horses entered in three of Friday’s nine races, including the talented long-layoff comeback runner Wellabled in the featured seventh.

The Friday feature has multiple high-level allowance conditions and a $50,000 claiming option and is carded for about five furlongs on turf. Given prevailing wet conditions and a forecast that portends poor drying weather, this race stands a good chance of being moved to Polytrack.

That would be fine for Wellabled, who is 7-5-1-0 on synthetic surfaces and 2-0-1-0 on grass, but the question is how well-abled this 5-year-old horse might be right now. Wellabled, who romped here at Arlington in the 2016 Arlington-Washington Futurity, hasn’t started in a race since February 2018, and that’s no real surprise given the way his legs unfurl in dramatically awkward fashion when Wellabled runs at high speed. But make no mistake – that speed is plenty high. Wellabled’s career-best Beyer Speed Figure stands at a Grade 1-class 107.

The potential problem for Wellabled – and anyone willing to bet him at a short price – is his front-running style clashes with several other horses in this field, especially the sharp Nuclear Option. It’s hard to see those two not engaging in a taxing duel and setting the Friday feature up for a horse who can stalk or close. The guess here is Big Rock could be that horse, though fair odds must be demanded, particularly on Polytrack, since Big Rock never has raced on a synthetic surface.