Longshot of the Day: Race 6 at Keeneland
Track: Keeneland
Race 6: $110K allowance going 1 1/8 miles on dirt for 3+
Post Time: 3:40 PM ET
Horse: #10 Mambo Master (8/1 morning line). Use as a win bet at 6/1 or higher.
This is a tough race at Keeneland today, but I find myself against several of the top choices. #8 Yellow Brick (4/1) is your tepid morning line favorite for trainer Mike Maker who has been ice cold in Kentucky where he has been 5-96 (5%) over the last two months between Churchill Downs, Kentucky Downs, and Keeneland. The horse also has an off-the-pace style that I am not sure works at Keeneland. #9 Lips Say Bliss (9/2) is interesting but is coming off a layoff and trainer Robert Medina is not great with those moves in recent years. Plus, the horse’s success has largely come against starter allowance company. #2 Django (5/1) for Ken McPeek took forever to break his maiden and has not made much of an impact since facing fellow winners while #10 D’oro Unbridled (6/1) is marooned with the outside post and is facing winners for the first time.
As a result, there was a trio of horses that caught my eye at a price. #5 Generous Tipper (8/1) is a horse that showed some real promise last year finishing third in the Breeders’ Futurity (G1), but then went to the bench for 11 months. His first race back was fine, but he was expectedly short coming for home. Trainer Ken McPeek is not particularly good with horses coming back from long layoffs and they generally need a few starts under their belt as he’s only a 7% winning trainer second back from this long of a layoff. That said, he is a nice value at the 8/1 morning line price. Right next to him, #4 Moonlight (12/1) also offers some things to like. The former Todd Pletcher trainee is now with Chris Block and might get back to running on a dry fast track. He won the only time he ran over that surface before having to deal with a wet track in his three subsequent dirt starts. Pletcher then ran him on the turf for the next three starts before the horse went to Block who returned him to the dirt. I love the value of this horse and think he is a worthwhile pick.
Ultimately, I landed on Think Big for trainer Michael Stidham. My hesitation on this horse as a value play is twofold. First, he’s jockeyed by Irad Ortiz Jr., which is an objectively good thing, but the issue is that Ortiz Jr.’s mounts tend to get over bet, so I am not confident that we will get that 8/1 morning line price. The second issue is the distance. His pedigree does point to sprinting and now he is stretching out to two turns for the first time. However, he’s had legitimate issues at the start in two of his three races, but the time he got away cleanly at Colonial Downs he looked like he could run for days. So long as Ortiz Jr. gives him a good ride and puts him just off the pace, I think he had a really nice chance to move forward against this group.