Saturday Stakes

- Still a lot of good two year old stakes to be run this year, and you never know when a prospect will come out of one. It will all culminate on the left coast with the G1 Hollywood Futurity and Hollywood Starlet on Dec 17-18. Some Grade 2’s next weekend, with the Kentucky Jockey Club and Golden Rod for colts and fillies respectively at Churchill, and the Remsen and Demoiselle at the Big A. This weekend, juveniles go on the turf in a couple of wide open-looking races at Laurel, the Selima for fillies and Laurel Futurity.

At Hollywood on Saturday is the G3 Hollywood Prevue; it’s considered a prep for the Futurity, which last year determined that Declan’s Moon would be the Eclipse winner. It's only drawn six this year, but Lauren Stitch in the Form sees pedigree potential in the field, especially in the 2-1 morning line favorite Bengal Lore. She explains his fascinating pedigree with a strong connection to Kelso. Bengal Lore (Tale of the Cat) also sports the highest Beyer in the field, having earned a 90 in a nose loss in the six furlong Sunny Slope at Oak Tree last month. He looks like he should be able to grab the lead from the two post, but needs to show he can stretch his speed to seven furlongs.

The Pharaoh goes from the outside post, and he should take some money based on second place finishes to BC Juvenile winner Stevie Wonderboy in the Del Mar Futurity, and Florida speedster In Summation. He’s by freshman sire Forest Camp, out of a mare by recently deceased Meadowlake. Forest Camp (Deputy Minister) has eleven winners thus far, he's doing quite well in the sales ring as well, with 59 yearlings having sold for an average of over $95,000 this year. Accordingly, his 2006 stud fee of $20,000 is an increase from 15K. Forest Camp is also the sire of Your Tent Or Mine, well-bet at 8-5 in his winning debut in September, and Valenzuela rides again.

Just a length back of The Pharaoh in the Del Mar Futurity was Old Thunder (Fusaichi Pegasus), and this is who I like. He followed up the Del Mar race with a dominating 8 length win in a maiden race at this seven furlong distance, covering the final three furlongs in an impressive 37 2/5 under a hand ride. The 83 Beyer continued a pattern of faster figs in each of his four starts, and he has a couple of nice long works for Ron McAnally.

- Also at Laurel is a Grade 1 sprint stake, the Frank J. De Francis Memorial at six furlongs. Might have been a nice spot to settle the sprint championship if you believe that it’s between Taste of Paradise and Silver Train, but both are done for the year (forever in the case of the former). Instead, we get the 4th and 5th place finishers from the Sprint, Atilla’s Storm and Elusive Jazz. A total of 14 horses go in this wide open sprint, which unfortunately, to me anyway, has just a little bit of a stench with the presence of likely favorite Tiger Heart. He’s yet another horse that has shown such improvement since being switched to the care of Richard Dutrow that it just has to make you wonder how he does it. This four year old by Scatmandu showed potential last year with a second place finish to Eddington in a route allowance race, but he had lost by a total of 36 lengths in his last four races before going from the care of Ken McPeek to Dutrow. Since then, he scored a 12 length win in a Belmont allowance with a 108 Beyer (at even money), and after another allowance win, ran second, just two lengths behind Taste of Paradise in the Grade 1 Vosburgh. How does he do it?