From once-started 2-year-olds in California to 6-year-old South African imports in Virginia, no stone is left unturned looking for Saturday stakes winners this week. Without further ado . . .
Del Mar Debutante
I’ve already tried once to beat 2-year-old filly Nooni. That came in the Sorrento, and while Vodka With a Twist briefly loomed in upper stretch, she failed to close the gap on the Bob Baffert-trained Noonie.
Nooni’s Sorrento looked good, not great, and the filly, a ridiculously expensive daughter of the $5,000 stallion Win Win Win, has continued since that race to demonstrate during morning work a desire to run through a brick wall. Her headstrong ways will put her on the lead again Saturday, but I suspect Nooni takes more pressure this time than last, and that the seven furlongs will stretch her. She might be good enough to overcome all this, but Nooni can’t be more than 6-5 or thereabouts.
Vodka With a Twist did get a somewhat odd trip in the Sorrento. She’s an attractive, talented filly who ought to at least run back to her last race, but four starts into her career, she lacks the upside of others.
Among them, Nooni’s stablemate Tenma, who, at 6-1 – veritable boxcar odds by Baffert-trained 2-year-old standards – went last to first in her debut, rushing past the gassed Baffert-trained odds-on favorite Usha. That race came Aug. 18, which suggests the Debutante came up as an option after Tenma won, rather than earlier this summer. Baffert describes the filly as a two-turn prospect. She looks like one.
I’m partial to Jack’s Magic Girl, who will be trying to buck what DRF analyst Brad Free has described as a meet-long speed bias on the Del Mar dirt. The price will be right to guess she can.
Jack’s Magic Girl far outperformed her modest Beyer Speed Figure in her winning debut, a turf mile where she came home in 23.40 while appearing to barely draw a deep breath. You realize, of course, that the race after the Debutante is the Juvenile Fillies Turf, yet connections go to dirt with this horse, and I think they’re on the right track.
Jack’s Magic Girl has worked fast on Del Mar dirt, and in the lone workout video available, her Sept. 1 drill, she looked fluid and comfortable. The trainer has excellent turf-to-dirt numbers. Let’s work some Magic.
Kentucky Turf Cup
Speed horses that handled the course were making hay Sept. 9, 2023, at Kentucky Downs. I wondered at the time, and still do, how much that aided Get Smokin’s 19-1 upset of the Turf Cup. Yet I still like the gelding to win the race a second time.
Get Smokin has made one start over 1 1/2 miles, his win in this race, and half the battle at Kentucky Downs is finding a horse that likes the quirky course. You’d better believe that a $2 million race over such a track has been the focus of Get Smokin’s entire season, yet he won the United Nations last month in a performance that validated his 2023 Turf Cup.
There was nothing sluggish about the U.N. pace: Get Smokin went a quick opening half-mile, then went another quick one. He was racing after a single 1 1/16-mile race following a long layoff, bravely holding off two horses he meets again Saturday. And as effective as Get Smokin was going 11 furlongs at Monmouth, I think he’ll be better going 12 at Kentucky Downs.
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Several in this field, even the Ireland shipper Chief Little Rock, want to show speed. I want Get Smokin to make the lead into the first turn even if it means going fast. He won’t be 19-1, won’t be as high as his 12-1 morning line, but he just might win another Kentucky Turf Cup.
Da Hoss
Speaking of morning lines, I’ll eat my hat if Isivunguvungu is anything close to 8-1. He might even be favored, but in a 14-horse field with some capable turf sprinters, he won’t be too short to have a bet.
This is a serious horse who was sent to Graham Motion earlier this year with the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint as a goal. That’s not unrealistic. Isivunguvungu has speed but also possesses a strong kick. Workout video suggests he has breezed with aplomb over the Tapeta at Fair Hill for his North American debut, which ought to be a winning one.
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