In an attempt to lure the best to the G2 Pennsylvania Derby, PARX Racing offered a $100,000 appearance bonus as well as purse incentives to the winners of the triple crown races, the Haskell and the Travers. Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist and Preakness champ Exaggerator took the bait and will be at the Philadelphia area track on Saturday. Belmont winner Creator’s connections will pass on the race and have opted to run fresh at the championships at Santa Anita.
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If all three triple crown race winners had shown, the purse would have increased from $1million to $1.5million. With 2 of the 3 showing, the purse will be upped to $1.25million. The race for 3-yr olds will be run at 1-1/8 mile over the dirt course. Last year’s Pennsylvania Derby champ, Frosted, ran 7th in the 2015 B/C Classic at Keeneland.
There is an abundance of speed in this 12 horse field. Awesome Slew, Cupid, Nyquist and Hit it Once More all look to need the lead. Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist is the class and the fastest of these but a recipe for disaster is when several horses absolutely must have the front end. Aside from Nyquist, the others have padded their resumes with easy leads on slow fractions. Awesome Slew wired the field in his last at PARX, the G3 Smarty Jones, by getting loose early to win by 7. Cupid has won his last 2, both G2 affairs, but the speed figures aren’t competitive with this group. Hit it Once More will be making his graded stakes debut off of 2 NY bred stake victories where he set slow and easy fractions and coasted home to lifetime best speed figures.
Behind these speedballs are the close-up stalkers Summer Revolution, Connect, Gun Runner, and Sunny Ridge. They will be sitting just off the pace hoping that Nyquist’s class doesn’t see him in front all alone, while the far back closers like Exaggerator will be hoping for an even bigger battle up front.
I checked the Philly weather forecast and with no rain expected, I will toss out Exaggerator. This Desormeaux brothers’ protégé will meet his kryptonite if the track stays dry as expected. Exaggerator ran at 5-2 odds in winning both the Preakness and the Haskell over sloppy tracks but has done no better than 11th in his last two over dry courses.
Several runners are coming off of the Travers at Saratoga where they chased Arrogate’s record setting run. Arrogate ran a perfect race with the Saratoga track bias so I looked to see what was going on with the rest of the field. In spite of fast fractions, only 5th place Governor Malibu significantly improved position behind the winner’s 23.23 and 46.84 pace. It was a “boat race” with not much to see in the back of the pack.
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Meanwhile, the PARX Racing surface had been running without bias. With no data on 1-1/8 dirt races, I checked the next closest and found a reasonable 22% of the 305 1m70yd affairs were won in wire to wire fashion, but in the past week the same stat is 0 for 9. Hmm. There also seems to be no substantial post position bias with post 1 winning at 16.7%, and post 12 matching that figure in the 6 races where 12 ran.
My choice for this race is 6-1 morning line Gun Runner, one of the Travers Stakes horses. The Saratoga track bias said you needed to be inside and up front. In 2-turn routes the #1 post was winning at 24%, while a whopping 76% of those races were won by early speed or stalkers. Gun Runner overcame the outside 13 post to break 5th, lost ground while 4 to 5 wide around the 1st turn, lost more ground 4-wide around the 2nd turn and held 3rd behind only the horses who broke from favorable posts #1 (Arrogate) and #2 (American Freedom). His Brisnet speed figure of 108 was a lifetime best and beats everyone else in the field.
