3yo's: Keeneland opener features 10 going 7f..

[Travis Stone]

Originally Posted by NTamm1215

The 6th definitely has the look of a race where you want to shop around a bit.

The 2 ran well for a Matz firster and that's not surprising considering she's by Speightstown, who's almost a 20% debut sire. The filly she beat had a perfect trip, was 0-7 coming in and came back to win a weak N1X while improving her Beyer 5 pts. Matz is 0 for his last 9 with the favorite in Gulfstream dirt races for 3YOs.

Seth Benzel is 0-45 in his career with firsters in MSW races on the dirt. His lone FTS winners (he's 3-80 overall) came in a maiden claimer this summer at Saratoga, a turf sprint last summer at Saratoga, and in a turf route at Aqu in 2008. The huge gap in her works is disconcerting. Devotion Unbridled, the dam, was a nice horse and her first foal to race won on dirt. Her 2nd foal is Unbridled Humor, who broke her maiden in September at Saratoga at first asking, then won a N1X at Kee and an overnight stake at Aqu, all on turf. This horse has the look of a router on the grass.

One horse that caught my eye a bit was Media Starlett. Mass Media has had 4 debut winners from 20 to race and the dam's first foal is a 10x winner (9 of them in sprints). What stuck out to me was that Kathleen O'Connell has started 19 firsters at GP in the last five years and 51 at Tampa. It's certainly not a huge ship but she could have easily started this filly at Tampa. The fact that she's working the way she is and is running for 51k instead of 21k or so is worth noting.

The 2nd time starter on the outside, Sweetly Valid, had a tough trip first time out but has come back to work well. Her trainer does better with 2nd timers and her dam was a crack sprinter who won over 400k.

I really like Litigating in the turf race. She was a nice winner at Kee then had a bit of trouble in the stake at Calder where she was totally pace compromised. Melody Dawn is interesting because Graham Motion was 3-10 last year with horses shipping in from overseas, that includes Aruna, who went 3-3 between September and November.

I feel like Roxy Gap is a bet against in the feature but have few alternatives. She has been laid up for quite some time (I know she's in good hands) and Casse has a very poor record with horses coming off 100-200 day layoffs in sprint races, that's of course as applicable as you want to make it. His numbers are just 10% with a $0.67 ROI. Her dam was winless on turf and her lone sibling to race ran three horrible races for Tom Albertrani on turf and dirt before going to Woodbine to break his maiden in a claimer on Polytrack. The horses Quantum Miss have faced are absolutely putrid. She's done what's been asked of her but they are tragically bad.

I could see Pomeroys Pistol running a bit better after having a bit of a tough trip in a stake in October. It may be useless, but in the first two weeks of each of the last three meets Amy Tarrant has brought back a horse off a 60+ day layoff to win and her ROI with horses off 61-180 day layoffs at GP is $4.17. You could do worse than give this horse a look.

Next time, please do a little bit more research before providing your opinion. Thanks.