00:00I thought this was a pretty kind of fun race to take a look at.
00:03Now, the complexion of the race will change a little bit.
00:06We did have an article that come out from one of our colleagues, Nicole Russo, on DRF.com that mentioned Mercante wasn't quite feeling himself.
00:15So he said, you know what?
00:16He's been doing really well.
00:18We're going to sit this one out.
00:19So you're going to take Mercante out of this race.
00:21Darren, we didn't necessarily have Mercante on top, but we certainly thought he was an in-the-mix horse who you were probably going to use in tries and exactas and stuff like that.
00:29So that will take him out, probably give favoritism to a horse like Brilliant Birdie as we meet the field here and we start things out with Henro.
00:38He's actually going to try the turf for the first time.
00:40It's not the easiest spot to try turf for the first time.
00:43He does have a couple of siblings that won on the turf, and he himself is a stakes winner sprinting on the dirt, but not even really a graded stakes caliber horse on the dirt.
00:53Yeah, this is a puzzling spot to try the turf for the first time because you knew it was going to come up tough.
00:59I mean, he did have a Philly, a sister of his that was by Summerfront, which is the family of Warfront, as you mentioned, that had a turf background.
01:07But his main sibling, Street Band, did his best work actually running long on the dirt.
01:11She won the grade one cotillion.
01:13She ran third in the Alabama.
01:15Yeah, I mean, this is just a total, you know, dark throw and kind of a prove-it-to-me type of situation with Henro.
01:21The number two, Lengios, is a grade three winner, and he's been pretty consistent over the last couple years on the turf in spots like this, right, routing on the grass.
01:31He's just been a little bit unlucky.
01:33He's gotten some trips where he got stuck in traffic, some trouble, but he's solid, just a little bit below Brilliant Birdie, who's beat him a few times, but not by much.
01:41Yeah, I mean, if he's a little bit below Brilliant Birdie, it's a very little bit below because he's finished within a half length of him in each of the last couple of starts.
01:51So he had trips where he's run into a little bit of traffic at times, and he's been kind of pinballed around a little bit in the opening verse.
01:59But when you take a look at it, I mean, if you like Brilliant Birdie, who's probably going to be two to one in here, I mean, what has Laganos done that makes you think that he's that far behind Brilliant Birdie?
02:09And he's going to be three times the price. So if you're looking to spice up the exotics, Laganos is certainly a horse that I would look to before I took the chalk and Brilliant Birdie.
02:19Me, Hermano Ramon, is the number three. He's been one of the better West Coast turf forces in this sort of division over the last year or so, Darren.
02:27He comes off of a pretty good effort in the grade one Shoemaker Mile, where he was second, beaten just a neck by King of Gosford.
02:33And now he's going to make his third start back kind of of the forum cycle.
02:38Well, he's putting a few races together. We could feel like another good race from me, Hermano Ramon.
02:43He wouldn't shock me if he's in the mix.
02:45No, he's as honest as the day is long. He always runs a good race. He's got several good tries and good grade one company.
02:51I thought his effort in the Pegasus World Cup turf invitational said that he fits amongst this type of field.
02:56He ran very well that day to finish just about a length behind integration.
02:59So for me, you know, sometimes when these California turf horses, I put them a level below the best of the East and Midwest turf horses.
03:09But in this particular instance, I'm not truly sold on a lot of them.
03:14So I think he's got a better shot than I would normally give him.
03:16Mercante is the four. But as we mentioned, Mercante is going to be scratched out of this race.
03:21So that's going to take out one of the major players. We move to the five DZ.
03:25That's event detail. Finished fourth in the grade three Arlington and wasn't beaten all that much.
03:31The problem is the three horses who finished in front of him were all entered back in that race.
03:35Two of them will be running on Saturday.
03:36So he's going to have to turn the tables on those horses like Brilliant Birdie and Lanyos.
03:40Yeah, this guy caught my attention at Turfway Park this winter where he ran two tremendous races and showed a really good turn of foot, especially in the race that he won.
03:49But even the race that he got beat, I mean, to say that he came from nowhere that day is a dramatic understatement.
03:55And he is a rapidly developing five-year-old with making his 12th lifetime start.
04:00I really tried to make a good case for him in this spot.
04:03But I mean, his last race was just kind of even like he was just there.
04:07And I just didn't see anything that would tell me, OK, he's now going to take a step forward and beat all of those horses that just finished in front of him.
04:16I think with the scratch of Mercante, one of the horses that could really benefit most from that scratch is the six, Taking Candy, who you and I both like a little bit in here, Darren.
04:25Taking Candy has the ability to sit pretty close to the pace and just kind of natural tracking speed.
04:31Last time out, had a wide trip in a pretty tough race in the Turf Classic.
04:35This is a softer spot overall.
04:38He gets to put two starts together.
04:40I'm just expecting a much better performance from this horse for the very talented Cherie DeVobard.
04:45I agree.
04:46And I nearly picked him on top.
04:47I picked him second for a lot of the reasons that you just said.
04:50I didn't like the ride or the trip last time out.
04:53He looked like he wanted to go forward.
04:56And it looked to me like Jose Ortiz was trying to kind of fight him a little bit to where he wanted him to be.
05:01And he resented it.
05:02And he ended up having to check off heels a little bit into the turn.
05:05And then he ended up three wide in the first turn.
05:07And he ended up wide in the second turn.
05:09And it was just from start to finish not a good trip for him.
05:12And, you know, I know he finished 10th.
05:14But Ortiz knew that he was done by the time they got to the 16th pole.
05:18And he really eased up on him late.
05:20He was still right there fighting tooth and nail inside the final for a while.
05:24So I agree with you.
05:25Second race back off the layoff with a much better trip.
05:28I think he's a logical horse that is a candidate to improve.
05:30Another Cherie DeVoe trainee is Brilliant Birdie, who ended up on the lead last time out, Darren.
05:36And I will almost always, as a gambler, be happy that the horse I picked is on the lead or getting that type of a ride, an aggressive placement.
05:45But this was a horse who had never been on the lead previously.
05:47I think he didn't really have the same sort of finish.
05:50Not really sure what to think about him.
05:51It's a fine spot.
05:52I think he's a player in here.
05:54What do we do with Brilliant Birdie?
05:55Yeah, I mean, he finally broke well, and he ended up on the lead.
05:58He typically does not break out of the gate well.
06:00And that's usually put him in the spots that he's been in, which sometimes has worked to his benefit.
06:05If he gets that trip again, I'm really not going to like him too much in this spot, to be completely honest with you.
06:10And with the scratch of Mercant, maybe he does try to break alertly and go forward here.
06:14But my take on him is he's within a length of several other runners in this field, and he's going to be half their price, if not more.
06:23You like Fort Washington, though.
06:24I picked him second.
06:26I think you have him on top.
06:27He's a multiple-graded stakes winner.
06:29This trainer does this with a lot of horses.
06:31He's patient with them, and they just get better.
06:33And this particular horse has actually had some wide turf trips and won with those that aren't normally the type of trips you win with, and he may get that same sort of trip on Saturday.
06:43Yeah, he had no business winning the Canadian turf.
06:45I still don't know how he got up in that race over Major Dude in a four-horse photo.
06:48He did that over a highway painted green of the Gulfstream Park turf course, and then he went to the dinner party in a bog at Pimlico, and he made a monster middle move on the far turn, took the lead, leveled off nicely.
07:00He's versatile.
07:01He's on top of his game right now.
07:02He can run over any type of a turf surface.
07:04He's my top play coming off of what I thought of two monstrous efforts.
07:08Seminole Chief rounds out the field, probably a long shot showing some speed from the outside, right, Deasy?
07:12Yeah, he's going to push the pace along here coming out of the shoemaker.
07:15Maybe the loss of Mercant might benefit him slightly, but he's in a spot where he's got to run faster than he's ever run before to be a contender here.
