Bluegrass Day

DD 238 with 6-7-11

Won with #8 in the 1st but ran ran 2nd with #7 in the second race

The colt I played a Derby Futures with is running in the Bluegrass in Race 10 #3 Burnham Square. He looked really good in the Holy Bull @ Gulfstream but shit the bed in the Fountain of Youth running 4th to Sovientry as the chalk. Trainer Ian Wilkes wasn't happy with the ride by Edgar Zayas & has bounced him for Brian Hernandez today. I watched the replay & Zayas did have him about 4 wide around the track & into the stretch he took him about 7 wide but he closed really well to just miss getting 3rd. I'll stay with him here.

In Race 7 I posted this last week about #3 Epic Ride

#1 he got into last year's Derby off the AE list. He showed early speed coming way over for post #20  & was 5th at the 3/4 pole @ 47-1. He got banged around in the cavalry charge, shied away a little in all the traffic & ended up 14th of 20.

#2 Prior to the Derby, he ran in the Toyota Bluegrass Stakes @ KEENELAND where he ran 3rd from post #8 to Sierra Leone & Just a Touch while going off @ 51-1.

#3 After the Derby, he raced again in the Perryville @ KEENELAND breaking from post 12 & finished in a DH for 3rd @ 15-1 in a real game effort. He ended the 2024 season running 2nd at Turfway as the chalk getting caught at the wire.

#4 He's raced twice in 2025 winning both @ Turfway convincingly as the chalk by 3.5 & 5 lengths.

#5 Love that he breaks well out of the gate & post #3 on Saturday should help him stay out of traffic in this 12 horse field.

#6 The same connections stay together here with jockey Luan Machado winning @18% for small trainer John Ennis who wins @ 22%.

#7 He will have to beat a NY shipper for Wesley Ward in # 11 Wathatalkinabout & #10 Extra Anejo for Asmussen & #2 Montalcino for Cherie DeVaux who has tons of speed.

#8 I think we'll get better than the ML 6-1 odds with plenty of money being played on the Ortiz Brothers & Flavien Prat on the 3 horses mentioned above.

Race 5 is a Stable Play but 2 scratches leaves us with only 5 fillies.

#2 Vixen

Irad tried to come up the rail with #2 Vixen but got shut down & settled for 2nd while his brother Jose took the overland route to get the win on #1.

Race 7 my play is #3 Epic Ride

#5 wouldn't go into the gate; #4 threw his jock in the gate & #11 was scratched after he hurt himself .

And my #3 Epic Ride got bet down to 5-1 from 7-1

Epic Ride broke well with the 3 to 2 shot but tired

Dammit!!

Race 9 I like that Many Franco picked up this mount for Dale Romans on #10 Coppola. #2 Our Shot likes the 5.5F distance & Keeneland. #3 Arzak has 4 bullet workouts & missed winning the BC Turf Sprint by 1.5 lengths @ 52-1. #5 Valentine Candy hasn't raced on the turf but has won 8 of 15 & banked over 1 mil. And Asmussen is sneaky like this. That's my box

2-3-5-10

DD 2-3-5-10 with #3 Burnham Square

Holy shit! I had only 1 horse in the top 4.

And I thought all of my capping was sound in that race.

The ponies are very humbling.

I need to have #3 Burnham Square run bigly....

Winner.   Good. Call

Wow, what a back stretch! Looked like he even put his head forward at the wire

@lawlessman @golfing123

WOW...that was something else, huh? DAMN!

I wasn't worried when he broke poorly because he usually does. He got away with it in a 7 horse field but he won't be able to in the Derby IMO. Brian Hernandez got him to relax & he started to move on the outside just past the 6F pole. I was watching those red silks passing horses & he got into gear into the stretch but he had a lot of ground to make up, like 7 or 8 lengths & #5 East Avenue wasn't slowing down. 

He came charging down the stretch & with about 3 jumps left, I knew we were going to win because he closed like a bat out of hell. Props to Meatloaf...

I don't normally talk about how much I play but I was heavily invested in Burnham Square & the icing on the cake was the late double 3-11 paying $272.04.

As a pony player we can always find something that can worry us moving forward. It looked to me like this race might have taken a lot out of Burnham Square. Hope I'm wrong because he's my Derby colt but I have to be realistic. I mean he didn't win this easily, right? He really had to work to get the check. 

So in the next month, trainer Ian Wilkes needs to work on him getting out of the gate because he'll get buried in the Derby if he doesn't. Pretty sure he will stay with Brian Hernandez to ride him. I got him @ 15-1 in the Derby Futures but doubt we'll get that in the Derby. I don't want him to get too much attention. Give that attention to Baffert, Pletcher, Cox, Brown & Mott.