Bananas Foster

Tweet So I'm commingling a couple of my favorite topics tonight. We've got the Stephen Foster, the biggest race not including Rachel Alexandra (she's on the Churchill undercard - that's kinda like Smokin' Joe Frazier being on the undercard) or Zenyatta tomorrow and Top Chef DC getting ready to kick off next Wednesday. So let's cover the racing first, the foodies will have to wait....


The $600K Grade 1 Stephen Foster Handicap at 9 furlongs (free past performances here) has attracted some serious horse flesh as 11 starters, some with an eye towards a repeat date back under the Twin Spires in November in the Breeders' Cup Classic. The current buzz horse, Blame, drew the 11 hole with Gomez in the irons and is currently the 3-1 second choice. The morning line favorite is Battle Plan, who has the Pletcher/Castellano connections at 5-2 and will be breaking out of the #2 gate. We last saw Blame at Pimlico on the Preakness undercard in the William Donald Schaefer as an easy single who handled six others rather handily. While those two will be taking a lot of money at the windows, a couple other horses strike my fancy. Duke of Mischief (#4, 6-1) is coming off a really nice workout and a nice outing winning the Oaklawn Handicap. Arson Squad (#5, 8-1) is 3 for 7 at the distance and trainer Dutrow is 31% coming in after winning his last race. Lastly, last year Derby trail horse General Quarters (#6, 4-1) comes in after winning his first turf race to try and claim the second Grade 1 of his 19 race career. So I'm going to take a shot with Arson Squad and Duke of Mischief with exactas wheeling Battle Plan with both of them and GQ.

Fellow TBA'er Zipse has his thoughts up over at ThoroFan's Handicappers' Corner sponsored by the TBA, make sure you check out his thoughts.


I find it funny that I am on 33 Twitter lists, and believe it or not, 2 of them are for Top Chef (LOL), which makes me wonder if the people that follow them really enjoy some of my horse related tweets on the off season. So Season 7 is ready to roll on Bravo and the location this year is DC (how Stephen Strasberg of them). I know a few of you racing peeps are closet TC watchers, so don't be afraid to chime in with who I should go with in this year's gambling pool. Oh, you can bet your vuvuzela that there is gambling involved. After perusing their pedigrees (those with engineering degrees get tossed), the two that have caught my eye so far are Stephen (Vegas, baby) and Lynne (culinary professor y'all). I will also be keeping my eye on Kenny (looks versatile), Ed (looks to be cocky/confident type) and Kelly (valedictorian), but everyone knows the race isn't run on paper. So we'll have a couple weeks to weed out the also-rans and look who the front runners should be.....off to the Downs under the lights for a few hours.....have a great weekend.