The best seems yet to come for Just a Touch, a May foal who on Saturday night seeks to nail down his first stakes win in the $250,000 Iowa Derby at Prairie Meadows after a spring season in which he accomplished enough to lock up a spot in the Kentucky Derby.
The Iowa Derby, at 1 1/16 miles, continues the $1.2 million Iowa Festival of Racing. There are eight Thoroughbred stakes making up the series that started Friday night and concludes Saturday night with four stakes worth a total of $875,000.
Combine the three oaks races in Delaware, Indiana, and Iowa, and we’d have something. Anyone volunteering for the nonexistent position of national stakes coordinator? We have interest in a pair of Brad Cox charges in Iowa, but Just a Touch will be the wrong price and Hit Show in the Cornhusker just missed making the cut. One might be compelled to play against overbet Impel in the Indiana Oaks, but where, exactly, is Chatalas’s baseline?
Belmont Oaks
At first glance, Impel looks like a slam dunk to win the Indiana Oaks. She’s run the fastest races, faced the strongest opposition, and the 7-5 morning-line price notwithstanding, she figures an odds-on favorite facing no more than seven foes Saturday at Horseshoe Indianapolis in the Grade 3, $250,000 Indiana Oaks.
At second glance, the filly Chatalas merits respect. Her form obscures her baseline ability, and Chatalas has moved from California to Kentucky specifically to run in dirt-route races, while Impel still must prove she really wants two turns.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Cinderella’s Dream heads a trio of European-based 3-year-old fillies who are seeking North American Grade 1 glory in Saturday’s $500,000 Belmont Oaks at Aqueduct.
With a nine-horse field, the Belmont Oaks came up the strongest of the four stakes offered on Saturday’s 11-race program.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Ninetyprcentmaddie hopes to end a severe case of seconditis when he makes a third straight trip to New York for Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 John A. Nerud Stakes at Aqueduct.
Based at Parx with trainer Butch Reid, Ninetyprcentmaddie has finished second in four consecutive stakes, including a neck loss to Joey Freshwater in the Grade 3 Runhappy here in May and a six-length defeat to Baby Yoda in the Grade 2 True North at Saratoga last month.
His powerful Epsom Derby win in the rearview mirror and a potential Breeders’ Cup Classic start still beyond the horizon, City of Troy is set to run in Group 1 Eclipse Stakes on Saturday at Sandown Park in England.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – After splitting their first two meetings this season at 1 1/16 miles, Domestic Product and Hades will shorten to a mile for their rubber match Saturday at Aqueduct in the Grade 3, $200,000 Dwyer Stakes. The two likely favorites won’t have much company when they load into the starting gate for the afternoon’s second race, with only Billal and Save the Trees set to join them for the 3-year-old fixture that will be decided at Aqueduct for just the fourth time in its long and storied history.
Stablemates Moonlit Lady and Quimichis bring different styles to the $125,000 Pea Patch Stakes – the nickname of host track Ellis Park – for 3-year-old fillies sprinting 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf. Trainer Fausto Gutierrez thus holds a strong hand in the feature on the first Saturday of Ellis’s summer meet.
Hit Show will attempt to start building some credentials as an older horse Saturday night when he meets millionaire Red Route One and local hero Ain’t Life Grand in the Grade 3, $300,000 Cornhusker Handicap at Prairie Meadows.
The 1 1/8-mile race for 3-year-olds and up is the centerpiece of the $1.2 million Iowa Festival of Racing. The festival was to begin Friday night and conclude Saturday with four stakes, including the $250,000 Iowa Derby.
