Day 58

TROUBLE - Right Off The Bat

My "best" of the day on this first day of racing for the week came in the opener wit Casual Smile in a Maiden Special event on the turf.  This filly had flashed talent in her second career start in Europe when second by a neck to Taghrooda who came back to win two Group 1 events and was third to the boys in the most prestigious race in Europe, the Group 1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.  Today she made her first North American start for Chad Brown with meet-leading rider Javier Castellano on board.  But right out of the gate it all went wrong - check the sequence of photos - broke behind the field - clipped heels nearly tossing Castellano over the top - lost the irons - steadied/checked again - but once recovered was picking off horses through the far turn before - fanned WAY out into the middle of the course.......... 

........and still ran third.  Wow.  My next two selections were scratched leaving me without a live selection until the seventh.  Sora was a fair 4/1, but was wide and ran evenly throughout to finish 6th.  In the 9th it was  GP 40% Club play for Michael Maker on the turf.  St. Borealis was the 6/5 favorite and saved all the ground into the turn with apparently a full head of steam as a seam opened inside......no response, 6th again.  I took a chance in the 10th with Three Alarm Fire in a nw2x allowance spot.  This guy had earned four of five Beyers above 90 and the one that was not you could toss in a Grade 3 over a sloppy track.  He had beaten Todd Pletcher's star runner Liam's Map last summer at Saratoga to break his maiden, and that guy has come back to win every start since including a stake.  The problem is that his trainer, Tom Albertrani - a good conditioner - was 0-for-54 at the meet.  As I wrote in my analysis, Three Alarm Fire was as easy to like as to go against.  Sent off at odds of 7/5 he simply ran evenly finishing fourth.  But the day was not a total loss as in the finally Bill Mott's Jewelisa scored for me.  She was a generous 6/1 in the program and I projected her to be a nice price play.  But the crowd sent her off as the 9/5 favorite.  She saved all the ground into the turn and unlike St. Borealis earlier, when a seam opened on the rail she exploded to draw off by daylight as MUCH the best!  My Mom arrived today from frigid Ohio and we'll plan to be on track Saturday for the three graded stakes, one of which - The Swale - will feature the return of Grade 1 winner Daredevil from the Todd Pletcher barn who ran the fastest speed figure of any two-year-old in 2014 in the Champagne.