Nothing doing bias-wise on this gray Thursday - a Thursday with unfortunately few horses racing at AP. Through 6 races, only 35 horses had gotten into the starting gate. Ugh. There are seven in upcoming race 8, but also four scratches; two as part-of-an-entry, one entered back, and one just plain scratch. The number of scratches this meet has been high.
The wind is from the east, a stretch tail-wind, at about 12 mph, and times have fallen into an average range, with one exception, that being Saber's front-running win in race 2. Six furlongs in 1:10.50 for $25K N3L claimer a pretty hot time today.
Good turf produced last-to-first winner of race 7, a $5K starter handicap on turf. Fox Force Five, heavily bet to 7-2, trailed the second-to-last horse my many lengths into the far turn, but sustained something like a 7/16ths mile run to win by a head. Nice work by trainer Rey Aguirre, an under-the-radar guy who always merits a second look in Chicago.
Trainer Manny Perez more known for conditioned claimers than 2yo MSW first-time starters, but 27-1 Vouch for Victory wore down 6-5 chalk Dakota Song for a debut win in race 1, a 4.5fs sprint, and the first 2yo race of the season in Chicago. This a $1.2K auction buy by Quest. Have to think the field was more than a little on the light side.
