What's Up Dude may work out stalking trip in Addison Cammack Memorial

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Put What’s Up Dude on a dirt track and he’s just another horse. Run him on Arlington’s Polytrack and the Dude turns into a tiger.

What’s Up Dude has made 15 starts on Arlington’s synthetic surface and won six of them. He’s got a second in the Grade 3 Hanshin Cup and two subsequent wins already this meet, and is the most likely winner Saturday of the $75,000 Addison Cammack Memorial Handicap, a six-furlong Polytrack race for Illinois-breds.

What’s Up Dude and jockey Jose Lopez have the outside gate in a field of six entered in the Cammack, and if rail-drawn Recount hooks up with speedy Richiesinthehouse, Lopez could find himself falling into a perfect trip.

Not that What’s Up Dude needs an unusual amount of luck to win. Typically a one-run closer, he showed surprising speed winning a second-level allowance race June 16, a third straight top-level performance following a dirt dud to start his season.

“I talked to the owner back in January about pointing to the Hanshin and races at Arlington,” said Mark Cristel, who trains What’s Up Dude for Danalisa Racing.

With 13 wins and almost $660,000 in career earnings, Recount is the most accomplished horse in the Cammack, and after looking like his form was fading at age 7, he had a bounce-back race winning a Churchill Downs turf sprint in his most recent start. The rail draw, however, does him no favors Saturday, although if Richiesinthehouse rockets to a clear lead, Recount might be able to get off the fence and stalk.

Richiesinthehouse alone and in the clear presents another scenario, that of a wire-to-wire winner, while Wile E. Peyote also can’t be counted out at a price. Wile E. Peyote had a solid 2018 campaign while perhaps not quite delivering on his early promise, but he rallied encouragingly to win an Illinois-bred Polytrack sprint allowance race June 16 in his first start since January and has a chance to improve upon that performance.

Recount is the 124-pound highweight,while Richiesinthehouse carries 121 pounds, What’s Up Dude 120, and Wile E. Peyote 117.

Jean Elizabeth favored

Puntsville for a few years has sat atop the older Illinois-bred female sprint division, but the torch might be passing now to Jean Elizabeth.

The two horses, both front-running types, are key players in the $75,000 Isaac Murphy Handicap on Saturday, a statebred-restricted six-furlong Polytrack race. Only four others are entered, with Joyful Night easily the strongest contender among that quartet.

Puntsville is a 7-year-old with 27 starts, and while her two races this season – fourth-place finishes in dirt-sprint stakes at Prairie Meadows and Canterbury – weren’t bad, they weren’t up to her historical standards, either. Now, Puntsville, who won this race comfortably a year ago, is back on relatively short rest, though she has a favorable outside draw from which to deploy her speed.

“I hate running her back in just 19 days, but there’s no other race for her,” said trainer Michele Boyce, who sent My Mertie out to win the Grade 3 Chicago Handicap here last Saturday.

Four-year-old Jean Elizabeth, from the barn of runaway leading trainer Larry Rivelli, makes her first start since finishing second in the $125,000 Autumn Days last Nov. 25 at Aqueduct. Rivelli has an awesome record with long-layoff comebackers, and Jean Elizabeth has four wins and two seconds from six starts over Arlington Polytrack. She’s a confirmed front-runner and Puntsville appears to have lost a little of her early zip, and jockey Jose Valdivia might be able to put Jean Elizabeth on the lead.

Joyful Night, trained by Chris Block, tries her first stakes race after back-to-back wins in her first synthetic sprint starts, both this meet. She’s weighted at just 114 pounds and gets seven pounds from Jean Elizabeth and 11 from topweighted Puntsville.