SLEW'S FAST HORSES FOR SUN. 07/07

For Sunday July 7, 2013, we have the following lineup catching Slew's watchful eye:

Belmont - 2,3,5,6,8,10
Monmouth - 1,4,7,8,9,10,11
Hollywood - 1,2,3,5,7,8
Gulfstream - 5,7
Woodbine - 1,2,5,6,9,10,11,12
Arlington - 5,6,7,8

If you had Slew's file today you got the opportunity to cash on several nice hits at Arlington and Monmouth. For tomorrow, we have two Key Horses running at a well represented Woodbine on Queens Plate day:

Hard Not to Like - WO ( 6) GP 01/05/13 # 10
Coffee Clique - WO ( 6) GP 02/02/13 # 1

The Marshua Stakes at Gulfstream Park on 1/5/2013 saw this Hard Spun filly Hard Not to Like win for trainer Michael Matz off an extended layoff in impressive fashion over a very game Channel Lady.

Here is part of my blog entry on that race:

January 5, 2013 Race 10 - Michael Matz won the 100K Marshua's River Stakes (G3) with Hard Not to Like (Rocco, Jr.) off an 8 month layoff, a bobble on the backstretch,
a long battle with Channel Lady (Pletcher/Castellano) during which she was headed in deep stretch, only to come back and run clear in the final strides.
The comment by the trackman was "...would not give up...".

That race took some starch out of her as Channel Lady came back in their next start to prevail, and then she was outclassed in the Grade I Jenny Wiley at Keeneland. But she looks to be back on track running a nice second to Pianist in Pimlico's Gallorette while getting a new rider in Johnny V.

She comes back to where she began her career, that is to the venerable Canadian track with the name Woodbine, the site of the great Cigar's last stand and the locale where they will run the Dance Smartly Stakes (Gr. II) tomorrow at 1 1/8 miles on the undulating Woodbine turf. They will also run a little restricted state bred stake race called the Queens Plate. You may have heard of it? Johnny V. flies up there to ride her and others, having taken the reigns in her last. He must have liked what he had under him because he makes the trip to the north country to ride her again. And at 4-1 on the ML, it is the shortest price Johnny will ride all day.

Also in that race is a second Key Horse, Coffee Clique. This is a very nice filly by Medaglia d'Oro out of the Royal Academy mare Miss Chapin. Not a bad family to be born into. She has made them proud so far as she has done little wrong in her short 6 race career, winning half of her starts including the Gr. III Selene Stakes at Woodbine. She is marked as 8-1 on the ML and will be ridden by Luis Contreras who is a career 17% winner. She is trained by Brian Lynch and beat the favorite Nipissing (I certainly hope that is the name of some town in Canada or something...) in the Selene by 4 lengths. Nipissing came back to win the Woodbine Oaks on 6/9 which gave her a lifetime record of 5 wins out of 7 starts. Not bad.

Now in the interest of full disclosure I have not yet seen the PP's for this race and may not get to them at all. If you are playing the Queens Plate card, give this race a long look. I will be working tomorrow but I will phone in some sort of win bet on Hard Not to Like and play the Slew exacta noted above in some way. I should also mention that these two are not only my Key Horses for the day, but are listed 1st and 2nd by Slew for this race as well.

I sure do hope he is correct!

You can grab the entire Slew listing at the address below and see what else might be there for you.

Enjoy the Sunday racing...good luck and good 'capping!