Pedigree Handicapping Saturday At Keeneland With Dougie Sal
Race 2: Maiden Special Weight event for 2-year-olds going 8.5 furlongs on the dirt.
A Day in Paradise (4/1 Morning Line) is the top selection here. In his career debut, this colt debuted going a two-turn mile at Monmouth Park with no lasix, in a race that was run in strong final time of 1-minute 38.60 seconds. By comparison, on that same day and at that same distance, the undefeated Souper Colossal won a $100,000 stakes race by more than five lengths in a final time of just 1-minute 38.44 seconds.
Not only did A Day in Paradise run a creditable third in that promising maiden race, but he did it while caught wide on both turns. With that experience under him, and getting first time lasix today, there's a lot of reason to be optimistic about his chances. Trainer Larry Jones is having another strong year, and he's struck with this '2-year-old second time starter, getting first time lasix' angle at Keeneland before. In fact, Gold Quarry quickly comes to mind, as she won at 29/1 odds going second time out, first lasix for this barn at Keeneland.
For exotic wagering purposes, the standout pedigree horse in the race is Thirtysevenliveson. This son of Giant's Causeway is a half sibling to a pair of stone-cold routers in Mine That Bird and Dullahan. After getting an education in a sprint race to start his career, this horse should improve significantly with the added ground.
Selections:
1st: A Day in Paradise
2nd: Thirtysevenliveson
3rd: Whiskey Shiner
4th: Lawless West
Race 4: Maiden Special Weight event for 2-year-olds going 8.5 furlongs on the dirt.
In his career debut, Frammento (3/1 Morning Line) ran deceptively well against a strong speed biased track on August 30th at Saratoga. In fact, that was probably the most speed favoring non-wet track day of the entire Saratoga meet. Interestingly, the two horses who finished last and second to last in that race, both came back to win their next start. Frammento is a Nick Zito trained runner, and Zito's debuters usually perform very poorly, but will often run much improved races second time out. The clocker reports also indicate that Frammento has been training exceptionally well for today's race.
For exotic wagering purposes, Westbound is an especially interesting horse. By a poor debut, but top class overall sire in Giant's Causeway, Westbound took a good bit of money in his debut at Churchill Downs and ran evenly. He adds the blinkers and gets Paco Lopez today. There's a lot of upside with him.
Selections:
1st: Frammento
2nd: Westbound
3rd: Malibu Park
4th: Starbound
Race 10: Maiden Special Weight event for 2-year-old fillies going six furlongs on the dirt.
Enchantress (3/1 Morning Line) was originally sold as a yearling for $160,000 on September 9th of 2013. She was pinhooked in the Barrett's March two-year-old sale and worked a very visually impressive 1/8th of a mile in 10 flat, as you can see in this link here: http://www.barretts.com/sales/TrainingPreviews/vidmar14/hip140a.wmv
Enchantress was so impressive in her under-tack drill, that she resold for $950,000 at Barrett's on March 3rd of 2014. In less than six months time, her purchase price at public auction soared by almost 800k. The workout reports indicate that Enchantress has been training well, and she certainly appears the one to beat going first-out for the Pletcher barn.
The main danger to the top pick certainly appears to be fellow debuter Zeven. The clocker reports rave about the gate speed that Zeven possesses, and her sire Lookin' At Lucky has done extremely well with first-time starers, winning at 30% with his debuters (7-for-23)
Selections:
1st: Enchantress
2nd: Zeven
3rd: Vandelita
4th: Pattitude
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