Fair Grounds 2/10

[Michael D.]

any thoughts on the big races?

all kinds of speed signed up for the Risen Star. sets up perfectly for Circular Quay .... a few other decent closers entered though. Crazyguy and Zanjero? former gets 6 lbs from the fave, latter is getting top reviews from the Asman crew, both might spot CQ a few lengths in ground from the outside posts though.

the Silverbulletday came up weak imo. i guess it comes down to pace. can JR control it from start to finish? i can\'t find a long shot. anybody?

[Michael D.]

i have to go with imawildandcrazyguy at long odds in the risen star. nice 2 yr old pattern, ending with a \'4\' in the finale at crc. gets 6 lbs from the favorites. should get a decent trip under Jara, as most of the horses to his inside should show speed.

also, another 15-1 ml horse ...

in the 7th, bureaucratic.

has a few runs in the \'2\' range, gets in at 113 lbs, gets the one hole, and gets a jock that knows how to save ground on the weeds. has yet to fire big on turf, but certainly bred to do so. the outside horse, devilment, could be dangerous if he breaks free. has the fast \'0.5\' on dirt, and ran well on turf back on Nov.

good luck all, a good day of racing.

[fkach]

I can\'t see Pletcher having Circular Quay wound up yet when the prize is still a few months away. At the same time, I see no compelling reason to take a stand against him here. I\'m still in \"show me\" mode on the CA 3YOs. Notional will have to be very good to win from the outside post with a lot of speed inside of him.

I think I\'d rather take a shot against Dreamin of Anna. Her reputation is primarily built on a wire to wire win from the rail on a BC surface that IMO was tilted towards inside runners. She may be best, but she\'s never going to be more highly regarded by bettors than she will be today considering she\'s a BC winner, Eclipse Award winner, and Derby nominee.

[marcus]

i like that one also - maybe use cq and another 1 or 2 on top to protect - interesting race ...  

and as not to cross threads but - imo , ky should have cancelled a couple nights last year and could have avoided the catastrophic results for not doing so - now they\'ve gone from the fire to the frying pan with this new surface ...

[shanahan]

i\'M WITH YOU ONTHE 8 - WILDCRAZYGUY - and going to box him with the 2 favs (5 & 12), but also toss in # 6, Westwon...this horse has run a very troubled race alst out here at OAK, and why in the world would lukas ship down there to face these boys?

what is taking FG so long to post changes?  they have 2 cross-entered...anytime, FG!

[fkach]

In the Silverbulletday Stakes, Total was all over the track through the stretch.

To me it looked like something was wrong. I actually thought she might pull up for a moment. However, I have a very dificult time telling the difference between behavioral issues and physical issues when horses lug in/out.

What should I be looking for?

[Michael D.]

wildcrazyguy ran a decent 2nd at 10-1 (decent may be a bit kind).

give Notional the credit - he did it from post 12. i didn\'t really think 5-2 compensated us for that risk, but he won it rather easily.

did CQ get stopped completely? missed his trip. always going to have the trip risk with that deep closer though. demand odds.

[fkach]

I\'ve been trying to get a look at the replay of the race to see what happened to CQ.  There was obviously some trouble in the race, but I lost track of him.  If he didn\'t have trouble, that was a disappointing effort. It doesn\'t shock me that he wasn\'t 100%, but that wasn\'t exactly much of a field.

I didn\'t play the race. I couldn\'t take him at that price and I couldn\'t take Notional at 5-2. Not much of an opinion for me after that.

I did cash a very small bet against Dreamin of Anna though.

[spa]

He had to dodge the fallen rider.