Weekend Action

- Stevie Wonderboy’s second in the San Rafael was fine and his supporters can spin it as a perfect tune-up. But I think the horse loses a bit of his luster with the effort. Horse and rider were working hard around the turn as Alex Solis on Brother Derek was seemingly taking a breather. Garrett Gomez said “My horse is so big, I was really asking him going to the quarter pole, but Alex was just cruising and we just couldn't quite make up that much ground." Brother Derek, who took significant late money getting pounded to 6-5, may have gotten away with a fairly moderate half mile of :46 4/5, but he cruised with little seeming effort through a third quarter of :23.2 as Gomez was pumping and driving to keep up on the favorite. The six furlong split of 1:10.2 was 4/5ths faster than the pace in the G2 San Fernando for older horses. And though he slowed to a final quarter of :25.3, Stevie was unable to run him down, foiling Merv’s plans for a big celebration.

Brother Derek is a Cal-bred, and unlike Funny Cide (NY-bred) and Smarty Jones (PA-bred), who both have Kentucky-based sires, he’s a pure Cal-bred, being by regional sire Benchmark (Alydar). His breeding seems modest even by recent standards as I mentioned in this post. There’s nothing much to see other than modest winners when you look back at his distaff side. It’s hard to buy this one as a Kentucky Derby winner pedigree-wise, but he’s three-for-three around two turns, and by beating the two-year old champ, has to be considered the top Derby prospect at this point. However, Stevie will have a chance to redeem himself if things go well and both make their next start in the March 4 Santa Catalina.

- Lawyer Ron (Langfuhr) is another three-year old that has proven to be flawless thus far around two turns (on the dirt anyway). He’s run for a 50K tag and as a maiden six times before graduating. He was two-for-two at two turns on the dirt coming into Saturday’s Risen Star; and though he had set slow paces in both races, it was notable the way he came home so quickly. This time he set much fairer fractions of :47.1 and 1:11.3, but still kicked strongly clear to hold off Mark of Success, who was live on the board at 7-2. "Every time I've called on him, he's given me that extra kick at the end," [John] McKee said. [New Orleans Times-Picayune] He got the final 2 ½ furlongs in a quite respectable :31.2.

I actually liked the first two finishers, but I didn’t like the exacta prices and gave up on betting the race. In the end the winning exacta had drifted up to $31, which in retrospect represented decent value considering I had tossed the favorite Saint Augustine, a Pletcher underlay as the 5-2 favorite. In Lawyer Ron, trainer Robert Holthus seems to have another unlikely looking Derby prospect, though style-wise he’s the total opposite of late closer Greater Good.

Nick Zito is definitely under the radar this year compared to last, when he had several of the leading Derby contenders. He has some promising colts that are yet untested in stakes company, and two of them ran in allowance races at Gulfstream this past weekend. Fabled ran second at even money in the 4th at Gulfstream on Saturday, and while it was a decent enough closing effort after he got bounced around a bit between horses in the stretch, he was easily out closed by last-to-first Rehoboth, a horse who has been no match for stakes company prior to this. So Fabled will have to show more if and when he tries two turns.

On Sunday, Zito fared better with Hesanoldsalt (Broad Brush). In his first try around two turns, he rallied smartly late to beat Pletcher’s highly regarded Sunriver, Ashado’s baby brother and the 4-5 favorite. (Pletcher added three more winners on the weekend.) The race reminded me of that of Noble Causeway when he debuted at two turns last year, the way he angled off the rail midway through the turn and swept by on the outside.

Another nice looking three-year old on Sunday was Darley Stable’s Barbican, who took a one mile allowance race (with another Pletcher favorite, 9-5 Mantoloking, running up the track). This son of A.P. Indy swept around a seemingly contentious field four wide around the turn and drew off impressively to win by 4 ½. If you simply bet the best last-race Beyer in the field, you’d have had the $10.80 win mutuel; he’d run 16 points faster than Pletcher’s horse. This one has true classic breeding, being out of Color Char, a stakes winning Mr. Prospector mare who is also the dam of two-year old filly champ and Barbican’s full sister Tempura, and two European stakes winners.

- What a weekend for sire Benchmark; in addition to Brother Derek, his four-year old filly Proposed took her first stakes, and it was a graded one, the G2 El Encino at Santa Anita.

- Patrick Biancone took the 7th at SA with European shipper Kitty Hawk (Danehill Dancer), live on the board as the 2-1 favorite and monstrous on the track coming from far back to sweep by the field in a 24 second final quarter. This three-year old is the third Euro shipper that Biancone has sent out for owner Lewis Lakin in the last two weeks. Cheerily (Danehill Dancer) ran second at 9-2 at SA on 1/6; and Always a Star (Danehill) won on the polytrack at Turfway at 6-5 on 12/30.