King of the Futurity?

- Pletcher has King of the Roxy, the 2-1 morning line favorite in the Grade 2 Futurity on Saturday. He's an $8,000 sale yearling by the $3500 sire Littleexpectations who was purchased privately by Team Valor after graduating in his second start. Prior to his next start, in the Adirondack at Saratoga, I posted on the Saratoga blog about Barry Irwin's account of his phone call to partner Jeff Siegel after watching the horse graduate on TV, and they're worth repeating here:

"Did you see that colt?....Did you see the way he straightened out that turn? You don't see a young horse take a turn like that. He kept the same strong stride throughout, changed leads like a well-oiled machine and looked like a router if I've ever seen one. Let's buy this colt."

King of the Roxy proved Irwin correct, at least for one day, when he ran a close second, beaten less than a length by Chace City. My own comment on his effort was three wide around the turn and finished extremely well...

I think he looks pretty tough in this spot. His main competition is projected to come from two colts coming off of debut maiden wins at Saratoga. Incrminate (Unbridled's Song), a $1.5 million Darley purchase, is a full brother to the occasionally brilliant Value Plus. C P West is one of three winners from the first crop of Came Home; and he was one of Zito's well-bet debut winners upstate...but I do question the quality of that race. I mentioned Alan Klafner and his debut winner Kong's Revenge in a prior post, and that son of Dixie Union has had two excellent workouts since that win on September 2. His Beyer is a bit lower and that race didn't have any monsters in it either, but the barn has had some live runners at big prices of late, so he could be worth inclusion in exotics.