- In the first, Chris Got Even (5-1) drops off a brief freshening for Zito, 23% (10 for 43) at the meet. This five-year old gelded son of Stephen Got Even had some excellent efforts at this one-turn mile distance last fall, including his career-best Beyer effort over this track and off a similar freshening last fall; that was also the last time Johnny V was in the saddle. His 5th place finish against better in his last was in a race that has since produced three winners, a second and a third. Looks nicely spotted here. It's Never To Late (10-1) similarly drops in class, and also fancies this one-turn distance, with three excellent tries at Gulfstream this past winter for the high percentage barn of Peter Walder. Samhoon (2-1) was one of those high-priced David Jacobsen claims that didn't work out; finally found his level in a restricted 20K claimer before romping first-time out for Chris Englehart with an outsized Beyer against four hapless foes at Finger Lakes; figures to be overbet in this spot, as does The Roundhouse (5-2), dropping off two weak efforts for Pletcher.
- Free music last night courtesy of the downtown River To River Festival; the British singer-songwriter Beth Orton performed overlooking the Hudson River on a picture and temperature perfect NYC evening.
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Thursday, July 01, 2010
Belmont Thursday
Posted by Alan Mann at 7:18 AM
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2 Comments:
Hollywood - Race 6
#6 Lyrical Goddess (7/2 ml)
Better-than-looked filly here. We were on her two starts back, when she was clearly best @ odds of 5/1, but she was extremely unlucky when a horse dumped the rider and came running up loose on her outside as she was setting the pace along the rail, forcing the rider to take back on her in order to let the loose horse go clear and avoid a potential disaster, which allowed the eventual winner to take the lead from her on the outside. She battled back gamely along the rail once she was out of danger, but the head-start afforded the other horse was just too much to overcome. In her next start, she again drew the rail in a race that was chock-full of early speed, and although i gave her out that day, i mentioned that in the analysis before the race. I thought she was good enough to overcome it, but she didn't do herself any favors when she veered inward pretty sharply at the break to loose about a length or so, then had to be rushed up inside and found herself once again in a very tight spot along the rail while slightly behind the leaders. She was able to keep pace, but the rail just never opened for her, and in fact you can see on the replay that Pedroza pretty much just threw in the towel around midstretch and wrapped up on her once he knew that she couldn't through. That's why it looks on paper like she faded badly; i really don't think she "weakened" much at all, as it states in the Racing Form's comment line. She drops in with $12k claimers here and finally draws well on the outside, which i think might make all the difference in the world here. She faces some speed once again in Hard Eight, but she's drawn to the outside this time, so she can sit right off that one's flank if need be, and in fact she already outsprinted Hard Eight in her frontrunning debut win three starts back. I strongly suspect this is the best filly in the race, and the price should be nice thanks to her well-beaten finish last time out. Good value here.
I'm at a complete loss as to what happened here. Lyrical Goddess had no excuse at all, and she never lifted a hoof. Maybe she bled, or suffered some type of injury. Has to be something along those lines.
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