"Lookin At Lucky, Super Saver lead Sunday's eight-horse Haskell"
by "Reload" Joe Freda
August’s loaded month of horse racing action shoots out of the gate with Sunday’s Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park. Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winners, Super Saver (No. 6) and Lookin At Lucky (No. 1), respectively lead the field of eight three-year-old contenders battling 1 1/8 miles for their share of a $1,000,000 purse in the Jersey Shore’s annual showdown.
The two Triple Crown rivals have not raced since May’s Preakness, where jockey Martin Garcia guided Lookin At Lucky to career-high speed in a thrilling stretch run, triumphing by ¾ of a length. Bob Baffert’s colt is the Haskell’s lukewarm morning-line favorite at 5/2, despite the 2 ½-month layoff.
Baffert, a three-time Haskell winner with no Monmouth Park starters this year, flew Lookin At Lucky east during the week after Monday’s five-furlong workout at Del Mar. The Preakness champ clocked the distance at 0:58 3/5 on the California track’s synthetic surface.
Lookin at Lucky’s No. 1 position will have the son of Smart Strike, who also sired 2008 Horse of the Year Curlin, breaking from the same spot which resulted in his disappointing sixth-place finish in the 1 ¼-mile Kentucky Derby. Lucky’s Derby jockey Garrett Gomez was replaced by Garcia for the Preakness, a controversial move by Baffert that paid an instant dividend.
Super Saver hit career-high speed to win the Kentucky Derby, three months ago, and is listed among two second choices in the morning line at 3/1. Todd Pletcher’s contender went on to a dismal eighth-place finish in the Preakness, despite being the race’s betting favorite at nearly 2/1 odds.
Pletcher presently leads Monmouth's trainer standings, saddling 17-of-78 winners, and won back-to-back Haskell’s in 2007 and 2008 with Bluegrass Cat and Any Given Saturday. The four-time Eclipse Award winner for Top Trainer notched his first Kentucky Derby win with Super Saver, who keeps jockey Calvin Borel (1-for-5) aboard.
No. 8 Trappe Shot joins Super Saver as a 3/1 morning-line mount, who comes into the Haskell with a four-race win streak. Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin’s late-bloomer won July’s 1 1/16-mile Long Branch Stakes at Monmouth by 2 ½ lengths, equaling career-high speed logged at Belmont Park in a seven-furlong allowance win, five weeks earlier.
McLaughlin (6-for-31) also sends No. 7 Uptowncharlybrown (15/1) in the Haskell, whose last start was June’s 1 ½-mile Belmont Stakes. The marathon’s watered-down field without Super Saver or Lookin At Lucky entered saw Uptowncharlybrown finish fifth, and later disqualified to last place by the stewards.
No. 3 Ice Box (9/2) and No. 5 Our Dark Knight (15/1) make up a Haskell-duo for trainer Nick Zito, who has picked his Monmouth spots carefully this year with an 8-for-29 (28 percent) record. Ice Box closed sharply to finish second in the Kentucky Derby, but followed up with an eighth-place disaster in the Belmont Stakes as the race’s 9/5 betting favorite. Our Dark Knight has been a top-two finisher in all six of his lifetime starts, with the latest being June’s 1 1/16-mile allowance win at Monmouth.
Rounding out the field are No. 4 First Dude (6/1) and No. 2 Afleet Again (12/1). First Dude unsuccessfully tried to ‘wire’ the Preakness and Belmont fields, finishing second and third place in those spectacles, respectively. Afleet Again keeps 13-time Monmouth Park riding champ Joe Bravo (41-of-249) aboard after the Jersey-racing veteran guided the son of Afleet Alex to a second-place finish in Monmouth’s Pegasus Stakes, seven weeks ago.
The Haskell is Race 12 on Monmouth’s Sunday card, with a scheduled post-time of 5:43 p.m. (ET). ABC will televise the contest nationally, beginning its coverage at 5 p.m.
Weather conditions call for a 78-degree afternoon, with a 40-percent chance of thunderstorms. The field’s best records on wet tracks belong to Afleet Again and Super Saver, who are 2-for-4 and 2-for-3, respectively.
by "Reload" Joe Freda
August’s loaded month of horse racing action shoots out of the gate with Sunday’s Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park. Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winners, Super Saver (No. 6) and Lookin At Lucky (No. 1), respectively lead the field of eight three-year-old contenders battling 1 1/8 miles for their share of a $1,000,000 purse in the Jersey Shore’s annual showdown.
The two Triple Crown rivals have not raced since May’s Preakness, where jockey Martin Garcia guided Lookin At Lucky to career-high speed in a thrilling stretch run, triumphing by ¾ of a length. Bob Baffert’s colt is the Haskell’s lukewarm morning-line favorite at 5/2, despite the 2 ½-month layoff.
Baffert, a three-time Haskell winner with no Monmouth Park starters this year, flew Lookin At Lucky east during the week after Monday’s five-furlong workout at Del Mar. The Preakness champ clocked the distance at 0:58 3/5 on the California track’s synthetic surface.
Lookin at Lucky’s No. 1 position will have the son of Smart Strike, who also sired 2008 Horse of the Year Curlin, breaking from the same spot which resulted in his disappointing sixth-place finish in the 1 ¼-mile Kentucky Derby. Lucky’s Derby jockey Garrett Gomez was replaced by Garcia for the Preakness, a controversial move by Baffert that paid an instant dividend.
Super Saver hit career-high speed to win the Kentucky Derby, three months ago, and is listed among two second choices in the morning line at 3/1. Todd Pletcher’s contender went on to a dismal eighth-place finish in the Preakness, despite being the race’s betting favorite at nearly 2/1 odds.
Pletcher presently leads Monmouth's trainer standings, saddling 17-of-78 winners, and won back-to-back Haskell’s in 2007 and 2008 with Bluegrass Cat and Any Given Saturday. The four-time Eclipse Award winner for Top Trainer notched his first Kentucky Derby win with Super Saver, who keeps jockey Calvin Borel (1-for-5) aboard.
No. 8 Trappe Shot joins Super Saver as a 3/1 morning-line mount, who comes into the Haskell with a four-race win streak. Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin’s late-bloomer won July’s 1 1/16-mile Long Branch Stakes at Monmouth by 2 ½ lengths, equaling career-high speed logged at Belmont Park in a seven-furlong allowance win, five weeks earlier.
McLaughlin (6-for-31) also sends No. 7 Uptowncharlybrown (15/1) in the Haskell, whose last start was June’s 1 ½-mile Belmont Stakes. The marathon’s watered-down field without Super Saver or Lookin At Lucky entered saw Uptowncharlybrown finish fifth, and later disqualified to last place by the stewards.
No. 3 Ice Box (9/2) and No. 5 Our Dark Knight (15/1) make up a Haskell-duo for trainer Nick Zito, who has picked his Monmouth spots carefully this year with an 8-for-29 (28 percent) record. Ice Box closed sharply to finish second in the Kentucky Derby, but followed up with an eighth-place disaster in the Belmont Stakes as the race’s 9/5 betting favorite. Our Dark Knight has been a top-two finisher in all six of his lifetime starts, with the latest being June’s 1 1/16-mile allowance win at Monmouth.
Rounding out the field are No. 4 First Dude (6/1) and No. 2 Afleet Again (12/1). First Dude unsuccessfully tried to ‘wire’ the Preakness and Belmont fields, finishing second and third place in those spectacles, respectively. Afleet Again keeps 13-time Monmouth Park riding champ Joe Bravo (41-of-249) aboard after the Jersey-racing veteran guided the son of Afleet Alex to a second-place finish in Monmouth’s Pegasus Stakes, seven weeks ago.
The Haskell is Race 12 on Monmouth’s Sunday card, with a scheduled post-time of 5:43 p.m. (ET). ABC will televise the contest nationally, beginning its coverage at 5 p.m.
Weather conditions call for a 78-degree afternoon, with a 40-percent chance of thunderstorms. The field’s best records on wet tracks belong to Afleet Again and Super Saver, who are 2-for-4 and 2-for-3, respectively.
