The Turf Sprint! Well, you know one thing is for sure. When it comes to turf sprinting I’ll have a shaky opinion. Thankfully it looks like they are expecting the rest of the public to be in the same boat as our morning line favorite is a less than confident 9/2 on Get Funky. You know what that means – wide open betting possibilities!
Mr. Nightliner would appear to be ready to factor into the pace equation in here, and at 6/1 could be something of a steal on the board. He’s probably the most accomplished U.S. turf sprinter coming into the race, but will the pace be contested and a bit too hot for him to hold on? That’s probably going to be the key to the entire race in my opinion. Horses like California Flag and Idiot Proof, among others, figure to also be a part of that pace scenario.
With that in mind, it’s not hard to see why Get Funky was awarded morning line favoritism, even if it is luke-warm favoritism. You just get the feeling that someone’s going to come from off the pace to pull this one off. Might that open things up for a longshot bomb?
I’m going to stick my neck out again and go out on a limb here by selecting True to Tradition at 15/1 as my top choice. I like the recent form with back to back wins (including over Rouse the Cat in the Nearctic), I’m not too worried about the extra 1/2 furlong of distance on Saturday, and I think he could park himself just behind the pace setters and get first jump turning for home. The trouble may be if he’s too close and gets burned out himself. I should also point out that being a Mid-Atlantic horseplayer, I’m quite happy to see the familiar name of Scott Lake as trainer on True to Tradition.
Diabolical is another that looks plenty dangerous to me. The question is, will we get the same horse as the last time he ran in N.America back in ‘07, or has the form regressed a bit? It’s tough to say, but it’s also hard to count out Godolphin Stable with anything they send out.
This is definitely a tough one and it’s hard to see clearly how many of these runners stack up against each other. Mr. Nightlinger could make it all academic, but won’t California Flag need to go as well? And what to make of Idiot Proof? He only lost to Get Funky by 1 length in his turf debut. Might he play the role of thief here today? Anything seems possible in the Turf Sprint. This should be a wild one right down to the wire.
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