We’re in, we’re dropping and we’re on the dirt. All kinds of fun things to contemplate as we try and get on a late season roll to round things off for the Club.

The race is a $12,500 claiming race going a mile and 70 yards over the dirt. We drew post position 4 with Denny Velazquez on board. Estimated post time Friday is 4:40 central time.

Prince Cheval (Bennett/Thornton) – Very fast front runner is kicking it up in class today. This is probably where he fits so I can’t see him running off and hiding, but if no one goes with him, he might.

Rivery Hall (Becker/Santo) – Been protected since last winter but has been less than impressive since the layoff and gets the tag here. An off the pace type, but with the same connections as the outside speed, he could be the beneficiary of a hard pace early. Interesting to see how thing one goes out.

My Pal Paul (Lynn/Sanchez) – Dropping in and stretching out for this one. Ran a mile two back and was respectable so maybe the extra distance will be beneficial.

TENS WILD (BRINSON/VELAZQUEZ)

Ballyjamesduff (Haran/Hennesy) – Indiana invader has won over this strip before. A similar running style to TENS, he should be on our outside through that first turn and hopefully have to run a bit longer and harder than us.

Charlie’s Phantasy (Domenosky/Felix) – Trained by old Club trainer Tammy Domenosky, this guy has tried and tried but seems to always come up just a bit short, though last out he was clearly second best after dropping to this level and could be tough late.

Defiant Flyer (Davis/Roman) – Won at this level here last year but was awful in first off a long layoff last out. He’ll need a hard pace to run at.

Marty Who (Perez/Perez) – This guys has gone and faded and gone and faded. Hopefully he’ll keep that style up and try and soften up Prince Cheval.

Dontchangetrainers (Becker/Emigh) – Leading connections, hot rider, and a horse second off the layoff. Don’t write off this Becker trainee because of the class jump after a loss – he’s been successful with this pattern before. This guy wants to go but is going to have a tough time of it from that far outside.

We can certainly win this one. We’re not a lock by any stretch of the imagination, but we have a good running style, a class level that should work for us and a possibly excellent pace scenario.

There is a lot of speed inside with Prince Cheval and if the outside speed can’t break well to catch him early, that could be all she wrote.

A better scenario is that we settle in behind the Prince and the two speedsters on the outside try to get up with the presumed early leader creating a nice little pace battle right in front of us through the first turn. I think we’ll be quicker on the break than Rivery Hall but perhaps not My Pal Paul. In any either case – whether Paul gets the drop on us or not – Denny should be in a very good position through the first half of the race and get first run on the leaders as, hopefully, the pace starts to fall apart.

Good luck!

TENS WILD races tomorrow afternoon at Hawthorne in Race 6. It’s a $16,000 claiming race going a mile over the turf. He drew post 11 and has Denny Velazquez on board. Estimated post time is 4:40 PM Central Time.

As you know, I usually go through horse by horse and give you some thoughts on each and then summarize with how I think we can win. However we have eight of the eleven in this one all coming out of the same race, including us, so there is liable to be a bit too much redundancy! So I’m going to skip ahead to how I think we can win.

This one is going to be tough. It’s not that we’re not qualified to be in this group – we are. We had two things working against us in the last race: the long layoff and the longer race. Now TENS has won at a mile and a sixteenth (he did his first out at Canterbury for the Keen barn) but he had run off a string of three in a row at 7 1/2 furlongs and one race at a mile an 70 yards. That 1/8 of a mile makes a difference and the combination of him not being used to it and the longer layoff taking an edge of his fitness took it’s toll.

Then we drew the 11 hole.

That run to the first turn, especially if he breaks sharply, is going to make it difficult to keep from going 4 or 5 wide through the turn. Conceivably it could keep us wide throughout the race. If Denny can rate him and tuck him inside a bit, we’re liable to be pretty far off the pace and TENS really hasn’t done his best running from that far off the pace.

The last race was a nice tightener for him and fatigue shouldn’t be a problem. The shorter distance is going to help as well. What we never have any way of controlling is racing luck and we’re going to need quite a bit of it coming from the outside.

Last out we got the trip that we wanted but not the result. Maybe this time we won’t get the trip we want but will get the result!

Good luck!

TENS WILD drew post 11 in the 6th race at Hawthorne on Tuesday, October 20. Denny Velazquez will be aboard.

Clay had thought that maybe TENS got a little tired in his last, a combination of being laid off for so long plus going a bit longer than he had been (mile and a sixteenth v 7 1/2 furlongs). He’s been training well and feeling good so we found him a mile race over the turf at the same level as last time ($16,000). We were looking at lower but nothing looked promising and given the possibility that he may have just gotten tired in his last therefore deserving of one more shot at this level before we start dropping him.

Look for some analysis later in the weekend and good luck!