I am heading down to Monmouth Park as I type but wanted to get in a quick horse by horse analysis of the Peter Pan. If there’s time I’ll also do a few more races for our ITM Plus readers.
#1 TRENDSETTER is a runner of obvious interest coming off his win in the Grade 3 Lexington. The race two back in the Rushaway I have as BTL (better than it looked) because he attacked a fast pace before gassing out. He showed the last day that when he moves more efficiently he can finish. There’s a world in which he gets a beautiful setup behind duelling speeds – the 2, 5 and 6 look like they’ll go. Major player.
#2 AZAM is a recent GP maiden winner out of a race that wasn’t particularly fast. The second place finisher there came back to be second again at maiden level so not a lot to go on there. Has a progressive figure pattern and the barn has solid numbers but this is a big ask and could be tricky pace wise.
#3 GROWTH EQUITY is your ML fav despite his most recent win being at maiden level but it’s easy to see why – that 89 fig he ran there is tops in the field and it’s been franked since (by the fact that the three run backs all ran close to the same fig next up). I thought he ran a little inefficiently the start before – close to a fast pace – so you can upgrade that a little. He’s an obvious win candidate but doesn’t make a ton of appeal at 6/5. Fast race or no, franked fig or no, that was still just a four horse field and now he’s tangling with a graded winner who might just get the run of the race.
The 4 is SCRATCHED
#5 TALK TO ME JIMMY makes plenty of appeal in the sense that he right up there on the hot pace that collapsed in the Wood. That race was very slow in terms of final time. Obvious Ocelli makes the form look a lot better, but you have to also remember that he’s going to be one of the great flow downgrades of all time whenever he reappears. Normally TTMJ would be a near autobet going from a race like the Wood into a short field Grade 3 but I just worry that with speed on either side his job isn’t going to be easy. He’ll have to win the speed battle and hang around to see out the war. He’s capable of doing it and will be on tickets but I am hedging for sure.
#6 GULFY is a very important presence in this race even tho I don’t think he can win – reformed claimer just doesn’t look fast enough. So why is he so important? The pace scenario. He is always up among the leaders and his pace figs suggest he is fast enough to give trouble to whomever else wants to have a go on the front end. I suppose he could try to settle outside and employ stalking tactics here but his rider, Kendrick Carmouche, is very aggressive, and his best chance, such as it is, is probably just to blitz ‘em like they do to newbies over at chess.com.
VERDICT: Call me Captain Obvious but I’ll go with #1 TRENDSETTER. For me the main danger is #5 Talk To Me Jimmy and I’ll key the top pick in exactas with him and #3 Growth Equity. I’ll use all three in the horizontals in that order of preference as well.
