Racing at Santa Anita with Marc Doche: Gelding’s debut trumps ho-hum feature

The late scratch of morning line favorite Hard to Resist leaves us with just a field of five 4-year-old females in the featured $62,500 allowance optional claimer over 1 1/8-miles on the turf.

Camelia Rose drops back out of graded stakes competition and to a similar level that resulted in a pair of runner-up finishes earlier this year. In addition to disappointing with five off the board finishes in graded stakes tries since coming to the U.S., the French-bred daughter of Oratorio was unplaced in a trio of group tries in Europe.

Rising from the ranks of cheap claimers, Little Emily has exceeded expectations by competing at this level and showed her versatility by winning an ungraded stakes on the dirt at Fairplex two starts back. The daughter of Castledale closed from far back to finish fourth in the Swingtime Stakes at a mile over this turf course two weeks ago and should appreciate the added ground.

Earlier in the card we see the debut of a regally-bred son of A.P. Indy out of the multiple graded stakes winning mare Tranquility Lake, with Vantage Point the 3-to-1 favorite in a full field of ten that comes the 6 ½-furlongs down the hillside turf course. A home-bred for Pam & Martin Wygod, it had to be disappointing to have to geld the young runner, but he has reportedly been training lights out and could follow in the footsteps of siblings Courageous Cat and After Market.

We’re off to the races!

Pick 4 -

Leg 1 – Race 5 (1,3,4,6,8,9) – Along with No. 3 Vantage Point, use No. 1 Only the Gold, No. 4 Spit Ball, No. 6 Guest Star, No. 8 Vodkatariat and No. 9 Mikey T.

Leg 2 – Race 6 (ALL) – Bottom-level claimers at a mile on the main track where it’s hard to eliminate any of the eight remaining runners so we’ll use them all.

Leg 3 – Race 7 (1,4) – Stick with the pair discussed above of No. 1 Little Emily and No. 4 Camelia Rose.

Leg 4 – Race 8 (3,4,6,12) – Four bottom-level maiden claiming females to close the day with No. 3 Barely Been Kissed, No. 4 Quiet Sunshine, No. 6 Bull Rush and No. 12 Courageousandbold.

Recap – (1,3,4,6,8,9) w (ALL) w (1,4) w (3,4,6,12) – Total cost of ticket = $192

Yesterday’s Result – (+$79.75)

Total for current Santa Anita meet – (+$1,126.45)

Total from 12/26/10 – 9/5/12 – (-$2,966.60)

Pick 5 –

Leg 1 – Race 1 (3,4,7) –  Off a career best effort when dipped in for a tag for the first time in his return to this main track, this No. 4 Currahee can win right back running down what should be plenty of speed in front of him. No. 3 Field Report will likely be part of that brigade and will be over bet off a clear win in a race where many of the contenders were compromised by a break down.

No. 7 My Slew also has to be included after finally breaking his maiden in resounding fashion when moving to the barn of Peter Miller for the first time.

Leg 2 – Race 2 (2,3,4,6) – No. 6 Solar Rocket could run them off their feet on his return to a track where he won twice in decisive fashion earlier this year, but his last race at Fairplex leaves a lot to be desired so we’ll spread with a trio of quality runners in No. 2 Nextdoorneighbor, No. 3 Luckarack and No. 4 Stoneside.

Leg 3 – Race 3 (4,6,8) – Lots of early speed should set things up for either No. 6 Warrens Wild Thing or No. 8 Street Rocket to win from off the pace.

No. 4 Major Magic has had success racing both on and off the early lead, so we’ll hope he sits off today and comes with a solid effort off the brief freshening.

Leg 4 – Race 4 (6,9,12) – No. 12 Funny Gal has trained great since moving to John Sadler, who strikes at a remarkable 35% first off the claim.

No. 6 Bojour and No. 9 Sense of a Woman have by far the best form of any of these maiden claimers.

Leg 5 – Race 5 (1,3,8) – Trim down to No. 1 Only the Gold, No. 3 Vantage Point and No. 8 Vodkatariat.

Recap – (3,4,7) w (2,3,4,6) w (4,6,8) w (6,9,12) w (1,3,8) – Total cost of ticket = $162

Yesterday’s Result – (-$180)

Total for current Santa Anita meet – (-$34.25)

Total from 7/20/11 – 9/5/12 – (+$17,380.65)

Best Bet of the Day – Can now be found in the free analysis section at www.theracingedition.com along with an early Pick-4 ticket and a consensus box for the entire card.

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For more Santa Anita action check out Jarrod Horak’s Pick 6 Blog.

Good luck!