the 2015 haskell stakes (grade 1)
The return of AMERICAN PHAROAH to the track after capturing the first Triple Crown in 37 years has been written about ad nauseum -- it's awesome, obviously, but I'm mostly interested in how the race on Sunday will shape up.
The most interesting aspect of the race overall is that Todd Pletcher has three entrants, and, if you take the dim view of it, it would appear that one (NONNA'S BOY) might primarily function as a rabbit so that AMERICAN PHAROAH doesn't get a free lunch on the front end, and another (DONTBETWITHBRUNO) is either entered to be a nuisance or just "for the hell of it."
Of course, the final Pletcher entrant that actually would appear to belong with these is COMPETITIVE EDGE, and frankly he's the one horse in this field that makes you think his talent might be in the same area code as AMERICAN PHAROAH. He has been favored in all five of his starts to date and, up until a really disappointing effort at 2/5 in the Woody Stephens, hadn't won a race by less than four lengths.
With that said, Pletcher likely kept him at races at a mile or less due to his pedigree, so thinking he'll stretch out all the way to 1 1/8 here successfully is, to me, a fool's bet. It could happen on the Monmouth speed-favoring strip if he was the lone speed in the race, but that is absolutely not the case here.
As mentioned, I have a dim view of the other Pletcher entrants, and if KEEN ICE was going to beat AMERICAN PHAROAH, it was at 1 1/2 miles.
MR. JORDAN has gotten away with some fairly slow fractions against certainly inferior competition in his winning efforts to date, and he also figures to be a part of that pace scenario with NONNA'S BOY, AMERICAN PHAROAH and potentially even COMPETITIVE EDGE. There's just a lot going on up top to think he can replicate what he's done in the past.
So we're left with UPSTART and TOP CLEARANCE. From a speed figure standpoint, UPSTART is probably the horse best equipped to challenge AMERICAN PHAROAH here, but of course the question is whether we can trust the speed figures posted in the hot Florida sun this winter. I liked him heading into the Derby and feel he's probably reasonably live here if Violette -- the gosh darn chairman or president of the New York Horsemen -- is leaving one of New York's premier events in the Jim Dandy to ship to New Jersey and take on AMERICAN PHAROAH. Draw a line through UPSTART's Derby and he's right there.
TOP CLEARANCE is obviously much more of a stab in the dark, but he's out of a son of A.P. INDY and a daughter of TIZNOW, so he seems to be bred to be something special. It did take him three tries to break his maiden, but I usually excuse that for the A.P. INDY line. He's moving way up in class, obviously, but he should like the added ground and has only run four times, so certainly still has license to improve.
The NO NEED TO CALL IT play: UPSTART $10 Win; TOP CLEARANCE $10 Win; $1 Trifecta Box UPSTART, TOP CLEARANCE, MR. JORDAN and AMERICAN PHAROAH
The most interesting aspect of the race overall is that Todd Pletcher has three entrants, and, if you take the dim view of it, it would appear that one (NONNA'S BOY) might primarily function as a rabbit so that AMERICAN PHAROAH doesn't get a free lunch on the front end, and another (DONTBETWITHBRUNO) is either entered to be a nuisance or just "for the hell of it."
Of course, the final Pletcher entrant that actually would appear to belong with these is COMPETITIVE EDGE, and frankly he's the one horse in this field that makes you think his talent might be in the same area code as AMERICAN PHAROAH. He has been favored in all five of his starts to date and, up until a really disappointing effort at 2/5 in the Woody Stephens, hadn't won a race by less than four lengths.
With that said, Pletcher likely kept him at races at a mile or less due to his pedigree, so thinking he'll stretch out all the way to 1 1/8 here successfully is, to me, a fool's bet. It could happen on the Monmouth speed-favoring strip if he was the lone speed in the race, but that is absolutely not the case here.
As mentioned, I have a dim view of the other Pletcher entrants, and if KEEN ICE was going to beat AMERICAN PHAROAH, it was at 1 1/2 miles.
MR. JORDAN has gotten away with some fairly slow fractions against certainly inferior competition in his winning efforts to date, and he also figures to be a part of that pace scenario with NONNA'S BOY, AMERICAN PHAROAH and potentially even COMPETITIVE EDGE. There's just a lot going on up top to think he can replicate what he's done in the past.
So we're left with UPSTART and TOP CLEARANCE. From a speed figure standpoint, UPSTART is probably the horse best equipped to challenge AMERICAN PHAROAH here, but of course the question is whether we can trust the speed figures posted in the hot Florida sun this winter. I liked him heading into the Derby and feel he's probably reasonably live here if Violette -- the gosh darn chairman or president of the New York Horsemen -- is leaving one of New York's premier events in the Jim Dandy to ship to New Jersey and take on AMERICAN PHAROAH. Draw a line through UPSTART's Derby and he's right there.
TOP CLEARANCE is obviously much more of a stab in the dark, but he's out of a son of A.P. INDY and a daughter of TIZNOW, so he seems to be bred to be something special. It did take him three tries to break his maiden, but I usually excuse that for the A.P. INDY line. He's moving way up in class, obviously, but he should like the added ground and has only run four times, so certainly still has license to improve.
The NO NEED TO CALL IT play: UPSTART $10 Win; TOP CLEARANCE $10 Win; $1 Trifecta Box UPSTART, TOP CLEARANCE, MR. JORDAN and AMERICAN PHAROAH