La Chica Returns

Tweet After about a six week layoff, Bella Cavello Stables' star mare La Chica Rica is back in action Friday night at Mountaineer Park. She races in the feature race (the 9th) at 6 furlongs in a $41K allowance for fillies & mares 3yos and upward. She has won her last three races by a combined 9 3/4 lengths with DL Parker up. She appears to be the speed and class of this race in her attempt at four in a row! The last horse to defeat La Chica was All Giving (twice) in mid-March and early February and before that was the well heralded Silmaril, with All Giving finishing just ahead of La Chica. All Giving won a big stakes race on Black Eyed Susan Day and lost last weekend at Colonial on the turf. She'll probably be bet down around even money, so the exotics should be the play. Gallant Dreamer and the up and coming Fast and Fluid (showing some solid works) should be her main challengers. The race goes off at 10:20PM on TVG.

Stable mate Gregson finished 4th Thursday in the third at Monmouth and Coal Valley scratched out of the fourth race. On Saturday, Generalissimo and Neon Nights both run at Mountaineer, so it's been a busy week for the Bella Cavello barn.

Where's Patrick Biancone when you need him? Looking for some cobra venom to wake up some of my accountants who have the post-tax season doldrums...

In Buffalo, you can travel 20 miles in 20 minutes (maybe further), home of the Delaware North Companies (DNC) and president William Bissett. Pretty cool, huh. I think Mr. Bissett maybe misspoke about the population within 20 minutes of Aqueduct (12 million!). DNC also owns SportService, the new Boston Garden and the NHL Bruins. Owner Jeremy Jacobs comes in at 620 ($1 bil) on the Forbes' richest people list.

Our pirate horse, Arrrrr, was the place horse in the 2nd at Belmont today, losing by a 1/2 length to Yankee Chief in his twelfth attempt to break that maiden. He dropped down to a $26K claimer, so we're almost there....

Hollywood Gold Cup (G1) at Hollywood Park on Saturday is shaping up to be a good one. Heatseeker, Student Council, McCann's Mojave and Big Booster all come in off wins. 9yo Perfect Drift seeks to regain some old form and the ever-present Tiago will look to dual his rival the Heatseeker. We'll be giving it the EquiSpace kiss of death on Saturday morning with some handicapping picks after some more analysis (pick up dart....).