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!