America’s Best Racing and handicapper (and avid gambler) Monique Vág team up to provide horseplayers with their best bets of the weekend. Vág will identify her top picks as well as at least one longshot play of the weekend, a nice opportunity to swing for the fences on a win bet or to take a shot with a show bet. She also will occasionally look for strong exacta plays for the weekend or try to spot a nice opportunity for other wagers. This Weekend’s Bets
Tag: Horse racing news
Kingman Book 1 Sensation Debuts in ‘Too Darn Hot’ Maiden
Observations on the European Racing Scene turns the spotlight on the best European races of the day, highlighting well-pedigreed horses early in their careers, horses of note returning to action and young runners that achieved notable results in the sales ring. Friday’s Insights features a 2.3 million guineas son of Kingman (GB).
2.20 Sandown, Mdn, £6,400, 2yo, 8fT
SYMBOLIC POWER (GB) (Kingman {GB}) was the third highest-priced colt to sell at the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale Book 1, with Godolphin paying 2.3million gns for the bay, whose dam is a full-sister to Fame and Glory (GB) (Montjeu {Ire}). Charlie Appleby introduces the February-foaled bay in the maiden he has won twice in the last three years and which was won by Too Darn Hot (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) two years ago.
4.40 Tipperary, Mdn, €14,000, 2yo, c/g, 7f 115yT
ETERNAL FLAME (IRE) (Galileo {Ire}) is one of two Ballydoyle representatives and is a fascinating prospect as a full-brother to the high-class G1 English and Irish 1000 Guineas heroine Winter (Ire) and the recent G2 Kilboy Estate S. runner-up Lovelier (Ire). He is joined by the stable’s Navan fourth Brazil (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), a full-brother to the G1 Irish Derby and G1 St Leger hero Capri (Ire) and this year’s G2 Ribblesdale S. third Passion (Ire).
The post Kingman Book 1 Sensation Debuts in ‘Too Darn Hot’ Maiden appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.
Rising Stars Set to Lock Horns in Deep Saratoga Special
With the outposted Roderick (Into Mischief) scratching in favor of a start in Saturday’s GII Best Pal S. at Del Mar, a field of 10 is set to face the starter for Friday’s GII Saratoga Special S.,headed by a trio of promising ‘TDN Rising Stars.’
Trainer Steve Asmussen, already a four-time winner of the Special, sends out Stonestreet homebred Cazadero (Street Sense), who looks to take his record to a perfect three-for-three. The May foal, a son of MSW & GISP Wild Gams (Forest Wildcat), set a pressured early pace before romping clear by 8 3/4 lengths on Churchill debut May 29 and showed a bit of a new dimension last time, sitting off a faster tempo before kicking home to win the June 27 GIII Bashford Manor S. by 4 3/4 lengths. Cazadero will attempt to join former Asmussen trainees Cuvee (2003), Kodiak Kowboy (2007), Kantharos (2010) and fellow ‘Rising Star’ Copper Bullet (2017).
“It’s nice to have a couple of races under his belt heading into a race like this at Saratoga,” said Asmussen’s chief assistant Scott Blasi. “He came in very well-respected and hasn’t done anything wrong yet.”
First-call rider Ricardo Santana, Jr. retains the mount on Cazadero, while Joel Rosario takes the call on Jackie’s Warrior (Maclean’s Music), a 2 1/2-length maiden winner at first asking in Louisville June 19. Second on that occasion was Therideofalifetime (Candy Ride {Arg}), who franked the form of the winner when swooshing home to graduate by 8 1/4 lengths at Keeneland July 11, good for the ‘Rising Star’ nod. Jose Ortiz, aboard in Lexington, is at the controls again Friday.
Fresh off a 6 1/2-length defeat of hot favorite Mo Mischief (Into Mischief) in a 5 1/2-furlong maiden over this track July 18, ‘Rising Star’ Momos (Distorted Humor) will try to give Christophe Clement a seventh black-type win at the meet in the Special instead of just waiting for the meet-ending GI Runhappy Hopeful S. over seven furlongs Sept. 7.
“He’s coming back a little quick with three weeks in between races,” Clement said. “I could have trained for the Hopeful, but this is the best of the choices, so to speak. I just would like to keep him going short in a stakes on dirt and this was the logical one. He seems to be very fast, so why change something that is working?”
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Jones Loaded With Street Band, Istan Council In Sunday’s Groupie Doll Stakes
Street Band was one of the country's top 3-year-old fillies last year. Trainer Larry Jones, also her co-owner and co-breeder, is still trying to see how that translates into her stature as a 4-year-old.
Just matching last year is a lofty standard, with Street Band earning more than $1 million in 2019, including victories in the Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks, Grade 3 Indiana Oaks and Parx's Grade 1 Cotillion, where her 2 1/4-length triumph remains the sensational filly Guarana's only defeat.
Street Band should get some relief in the ferocity of competition when she runs in Sunday's $100,000 Groupie Doll Stakes at Ellis Park, one of five stakes on the RUNHAPPY Ellis Park Derby card. Street Band is 0 for 3 in 2020, all against top-flight company: a very close third in the Grade 3 Houston Ladies Classic, a fading fourth in the Grade 2 Azeri Stakes and a rallying fourth in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom in April in her last start.
“I think she had reached her peak early fall last year, late summer,” Jones said. “She was really doing well. She's doing just as well now, but she just has not looked like (she's) doing better. She looks like maybe she matured early, and we have not been as busy with her, and some of it due to the COVID.”
Street Band drew post 12 as the Groupie Doll attracted 15 fillies and mares, with the three “also-eligibles” requiring defections in order to make the capacity field of 12. The Groupie Doll goes off as race 9 on the 10-race card capped by the RUNHAPPY Ellis Park Derby. The sensational betting card is dominated by full fields, with TVG providing live on-site coverage.
Jones is hoping the Groupie Doll is a steppingstone to Keeneland's Grade 1 Spinster. With the Breeders' Cup also at Keeneland this year, the major objective is getting Street Band back into the $2 million Distaff, a race in which she was eighth last year.
“We've only had three starts,” Jones said of 2020. “The Houston Ladies Classic, she had a wide trip, and I thought that was a really good race for her. In the Azeri, the track was really sloppy and I didn't think she ran her best race by any means. (Kentucky Oaks winner) Serengeti Empress got on an easy lead and just kept going. She's running good. I don't know if she's any better at 4 than she was at 3.”
Jones is known for being forthright anyway. But he also can speak candidly about Street Band as a co-owner with wife Cindy, Ray Francis of Henderson and with minority interests owned by Medallion Racing and MyRaceHorse Stable.
“I have as much on the line as they do,” Jones said. “So my partners have been very agreeable to do what we're doing. So it's worked out well.
“… The Groupie Doll is the premier race here,” the long-time Henderson resident continued. “Not knowing two months ago how the COVID was going to be doing, we just decided to stay home, try not to do a lot of outside traveling and maybe getting ourselves and our barn in jeopardy of getting quarantined. This is always a race we have on our radar for our fillies. I've run some Grade 1 winners in this race. It's a good race, and I love racing at Ellis Park on their track.”
Indeed, after finishing second in the 2012 Groupie Doll (then known as the Gardenia), Jones sent Joyous Victory to California, where she was second in the Grade 1 Zenyatta before the next spring returning for victory in the Grade 1 Santa Margarita. Groupie Doll herself finished third in the 2013 Gardenia before winning her second straight Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint and female sprint championship. (Groupie Doll also won the 2011 Gardenia as a 3-year-old.)
Jockey Sophie Doyle, who has ridden Street Band for the past 13 of her 16 career starts, comes in from Iowa's Prairie Meadows to ride. She says she sees the signs that Street Band at 4 is the same as Street Band at 3. One thing that is different this year is that Doyle switched circuits and hasn't been able to be on the filly in most of her timed workouts.
“She's always been performing and trying hard,” Doyle said of the Street Band, the jockey's first Grade 1 winner. “… Street Band is just incredible. I've been so fortunate and blessed to come across a filly like her. We've been together from the very beginning. The past two years, it's been a development with each race we've gone into. I think it's been an important key for both of us that we've been able to progress together so well. She's highlighted my career in so many ways.”
Jones has another Groupie Doll contender in Istan Council, who last year defeated older horses by 10 3/4 lengths to win an Ellis Park allowance race.
“She really does well on this track,” Jones said. “And I love the fact that going a mile here is not a two-turn race. It's maybe a turn and three-quarters. We know she wants to go a little bit longer than the six furlongs we've been able to find to keep her at the one-turn. We haven't been able to find a true one-turn mile race for her. But she's coming into this race very well.”
Both fillies come into the race without their final scheduled workout, with Jones calling them off Tuesday because of the muddy track.
“We'll have to go into the race just off of gallops,” he said in a text update. “Uncharted waters for both of them.”
In addition to the Groupie Doll and $200,000 RUNHAPPY Ellis Park Derby, the other stakes Sunday are the $100,000 RUNHAPPY Juvenile,$100,000 RUNHAPPY Debutante and the $100,000 RUNHAPPY Audubon Oaks.
The post Jones Loaded With Street Band, Istan Council In Sunday’s Groupie Doll Stakes appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
