[Rupert Pupkin]

There is a 3 year old I really like named Hunch. He's actually entered on Friday at Hollywood Park. I think they're just going to give him the race as a prep for the Malibu. He hasn't run in 6 months. He's eligible to run nwx1 and there is a nwx1 on the main track on Sunday at 6 1/2 furlongs. Instead of running him in there, they're running him over his conditions in a nwx2 on Friday on the grass at 6 furlongs. The horse has never run on the grass. The race on Sunday is 13 days before the Malibu. I think they're running him on Friday instead for two reasons. First, he will have an extra 2 days (15 instead of 13) before the Malibu. Second, they don't want him to run too hard so they don't want to run him on his preferred surface. Those are the only possible two reasons why they would want to run him in a nwx2 on the grass instead of a nwx1 on a track that he loves.

I guess they could be thinking that the race on Friday may come off the grass, but why would they take the gamble? Once in a while in California, the racing secretary will allow a guy to enter for "main track only" even though it's not denoted in the DRF in California. I guess that is a possibility. But that wouldn't make much sense because entires for Sunday are tomorrow. Tomorrow when they draw entires for Sunday, they won't even know if the race on Friday is coming off the grass or not.

One more possibility is that they may feel they absolutely have to give him a prep race before the Malibu, and they didn't want to take a chance of Sunday's race not filling.

Anyway, assuming they just give him the race on Friday, he will probably be 15-1 in the Malibu. That would be the time to bet him. If he runs hard and wins the allowance race, I wouldn't like him coming back in two weeks.