At the Quarter Pole

Tweet Hard to believe that the Spa meet has reached the quarter pole already. With Day 9 in the books we are 25% of the way through the meet already and the races for leading jock and trainer are very close. Ramon Dominguez has 12 wins to lead the red-hot Julien Leparoux (inset: courtesy me) by one victory. Leparoux rode three winners today in front of 23,368, including Solitaire in the John's Call paying $13. The man is golden on the turf and also leads in jockey earnings through the first quarter. In the trainer standings, Todd Pletcher and Bill Mott sit atop the leaderboard with 5 winners apiece.

The Toga Party Contest has two points up for grabs tomorrow, the Whitney winner (get your picks to me if you haven't already) and the # of wins by the 8 horse tomorrow. Crazy 8's day (08/08) at the Spa. There are two morning line favorites wearing #8 tomorrow, Spell (2-1) in the 2nd and Maram (5-2) in the 8th. One of the new contest questions was the number of races on the turf for the entire meet. Through the first quarter 37 races have gone on the turf as scheduled, and only 10 have been rained off the turf. This projects out to 148 races, which would put the SpaceBro in good shape. The past few days have been brilliant weather-wise and no races have been washed off the turf. But as you know, the weather can change at any moment in the Adirondacks.

The Whitney looks like a great field, I like Smooth Air to win over Asiatic Boy and Dry Martini. How's that for in-depth analysis.

Tomorrow is a big day in Western New York as defensive end Bruce Smith and owner Ralph Wilson are inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Bruce and I arrived in Buffalo the same year, although he was a number one draft pick and I was the last recruit to get an offer at a firm called Touche Ross & Company. His starting salary was a tad more than mine at the time. He was an incredible football player who I loved to key on way up in section J3 in the upper deck. He would come around the corner faster than anyone I've ever watched to record sack after sack to the roar of BRUUUUUUUCE, by the Rich Stadium faithful. Mr. Wilson, based in Detroit, has also been involved in thoroughbred racing. He bred the 1971 Santa Anita Derby winner, Jim French as well as two-year-old European superstar Arazi, winner of the 1991 Breeders' Cup Juvenile and European Horse of the Year. Ralph has done right by Buffalo, although he has his critics in town. I look forward to watching their induction speeches tomorrow as it will bring back fond memories of the 90's Bills and the awesome run I was fortunate to witness first hand.

How 'bout that. A whole post without mentioning whatshername....have a great Saturday.

Ohio Derby

Tweet The big race of the weekend is the 74th running of the $300K Ohio Derby (G2) being run at 1 1/8 miles at Magna's Thistledown outside of the greater Cleveland area.

The field for the race is as follows:

1 - Smooth Air/Manoel Cruz/Bennie Stutts, Jr./2-1

2 - Medjool/Jose Caraballo/Michael Matz/7-2

3 - Your Round/Miguel Mena/Mark Hubley/8-1

4 - Instill/Danush Sukie/John Wainwright/8-1

5 - Stolen Chevy/Rex Stokes III/Michael Estes/15-1

6 - Celtic Meal/Andrew Ramgeet/Miguel Feliciano/20-1

7 - Z Fortune/Garrett Gomez/Steve Asmussen/5-2

8 - Cherokee Artist/Jeremy Rose/Graham Motion/12-1

The field is fairly strong with two Derby horses, Smooth Air (who draws the rail) and Z Fortune both graded stakes winners leading the field as the top two morning line choices. Manny Cruz takes his ninth consecutive mount on the 3yo bay colt Smooth Air (11th in KD), winner of the Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream in January and ran 2nd to Big Brown in the Florida Derby (G1). Z Fortune won the LeComte at the Fair Grounds in early January and was the 2nd place finisher behind Gayego in the Arkansas Derby (G2). Medjool is the third choice at 7-2, and gets a new rider in Jose Caraballo. He is by 2002 Derby champion Monarchos out of Perfect Story, and has run all of his races on synthetic surfaces. Your Round has hit the board in 5 of his 7 races (only once on dirt in a N1X), but has faced decent competition. Instill has the second highest BSF (101) coming off his last race at Hawthorne, but is probably a candidate to bounce. Cherokee Artist has the red-hot Jeremy Rose aboard after breaking his maiden on Derby Day at Churchill.

I’m looking for Z Fortune to rebound under Gomez and prevail over Cherokee Artist and Smooth Air. In the exotics I will use Your Round and Medjool underneath.

In Belmont news, the undercard possibilities were released on Thursday by NYRA where there will be a guaranteed $1M Pick-6 starting in race six and a guaranteed $1M Pick-4 starting in race eight, both concluding with the Belmont Stakes.