The two best horses in trainer Anne Wisdom’s small stable are a pair of 5-year-old male milers, Its Kraken Time and Owhatarush, who like to race on or near the lead. Trainers typically don’t like to run stablemates against each other under most circumstances, but considering this pair’s similarities and the fact that Wisdom owns a majority stake in each horse, such wariness is especially pronounced here.
Its Kraken Time has just two wins from 23 career starts, while Owhatarush is 4 for 18, and Wisdom has mostly managed to keep them away from each other on the racecourse, especially at their preferred distance. But her hand was all but forced to enter them this Sunday in the same race, a $26,000 allowance at a mile with a ton of early speed.
“The races just aren’t filling,” explained Wisdom, lamenting the fact that her prize pupils have only managed three starts apiece this meet. “I was fighting against having to run them together because they have the same style, but if that’s what it takes to fill a race, that’s what I have to do. If this race wouldn’t have gone, they’d have been on a van to California.”
After both horses competed this past winter at Turf Paradise, where Owhatarush won at a mile on grass, Wisdom felt like she needed to get a race under each of them at Emerald in May. Unfortunately, the best she could do were sprints for each, with neither finishing in the money.
“Those were kind of wasted races except that I got them fit,” Wisdom noted.
That she has. Despite their modest records and the assumption that neither will be among the favorites in Sunday’s ninth race, Wisdom’s pair are tied for the best last-out Beyer Speed Figure (80) in a very competitive eight-horse field. Owhatarush finished a game third in posting his figure in a $25,000 claiming race at a mile on June 28, while Its Kraken Time ran second in a $25,000 allowance on June 29, with the winner, What a Dude, running the fastest mile (1:33.85) at the current meet.
Given that he’s drawn the rail, Its Kraken Time, who was bred by Wisdom, will have no choice but to hustle to the front. Starting from post 4, that would be Owhatarush’s preference as well, but, as Wisdom says, “It’s not gonna happen Sunday. There’s a lot of speed in there.”
“I believe they’ll be close to the lead,” Wisdom said of her pair. “They both like the rail and don’t like to be told no about going to the lead. I just hope they don’t get pressured and have to go too fast, although when I ran Owhatarush last time, it was the first time he rated without getting frazzled by it.”
Blaine Wright’s Executive Chef and Fifty Cinco, who will make his first start off the claim for Jorge Rosales, both boast tactical speed and figure to be favored, while Justin Evans’s speedy Coastal Jazz will stretch out to a route for the first time in nearly 11 months. And in the event of an absolute pace meltdown, the closer Chief Wild Eagle is likely to go off at a fat price as he steps up in class.
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