There’s a 10 race Friday card as we start the second to last week of racing at the Oaklawn Park meet. There’s a nice optional claiming/allowance sprint as the featured 9th race, where I think Go West (#2) has a distinct advantage over his rivals. First post today is 12:10 (CT).
I’ll be covering this exciting meet on the ITM Blog, along with posting some updates and thoughts from time to time on Twitter @EricSolomon718. Feel free to reach out!
| Race | Top Pick | A | B | C | Exotics Menu |
| 1 | 8 | 2,7,8 | 1 | DBL, PK5 | |
| 2 | 9 | 9 | 5 | DBL, PK3, PK4 | |
| 3 | 4 | 4 | 1,2 | DBL, PK3 | |
| 4 | 1 | 1,8 | DBL, PK3 | ||
| 5 | 9 | 2,6,9 | DBL, PK3 | ||
| 6 | 6 | 6 | 3 | DBL, PK3, PK5 | |
| 7 | 3 | 3,4,11 | 13 | DBL, PK3, PK4 | |
| 8 | 5 | 5 | 1,9 | DBL, PK3 | |
| 9 | 2 | 2 | 1 | DBL | |
| 10 | 2 | 2,3 | 4,5 |
Race 3:
I don’t care for the favorite, Blow Torch (#10), in this $12,500-$10,000 N3L claiming race, so I’ll make Drifter (#4) the top pick. He was well-beaten against a much better field in starter allowance company last time out. He likes this course, winning twice and finishing in the money 5 of 9 times overall. McKnight and Saez have won 25% of their races together at this meet, both performing significantly better than their overall stats.
Race 6:
There’s a lot of early speed signed on in this optional $60K claiming/$60K starter allowance race, which should give the perfect setup to the morning line favorite, Cactus (#6). He ran well to be third in the Hot Springs Stakes four weeks ago. He’s a perfect 2-2 while sprinting, winning with $30K maiden claimers on debut and then beating a similar field in the slop in February. Morse doesn’t have good numbers with runners going from routes to sprints, but I can look past that in this instance, because I think there are too many other positive signs.
Race 8:
Fair Grounds invader, Marina’s Gold (#5) is the live longshot of the day for me, starting off at 15-1 on the morning line. She was awesome three starts back, dominating a $25K-$20K N2L claiming field. She ran twice at this level in New Orleans, and finished off the board while having a few less than ideal trips. She has been given a brief break and now comes to a spot where I think she’ll be able to sit a better trip for her new connections. I see the shorter prices in this spot being a bit vulnerable, so she feels like good value in this race today.
