Longshot of the Day: Race 7 at Colonial Downs
Track: Colonial Downs
Race 7: $75K optional claimer going 1 1/16 miles on the turf for 3+
Post Time: 3:25 PM ET
Horse: #5 Won an Award (6/1 morning line) use as a win bet at 5/1 or higher.
Colonial Downs has a nice Wednesday card with good turf racing, and I targeted their feature race for my longshot selection. Morning line favorite, #2 Dripping Gold (9/5), is certainly logical and coming off a close loss at Colonial last time out to Goldeneye who has already come back to win next time out. However, the horse hasn’t quite gotten back to the form he showed last year and is only 3-23 winning, which makes me weary of taking a short price. Therefore, I look toward Won an Award for trainer Jorge Duarte Jr. who is always dangerous at Colonial Downs as he’s winning 24% of his entries this meet. There are some things to like about Won an Award who is sired by Oscar Performance and out of a Street Cry mare. The horse took eight races to break his maiden but has done well since facing off against winners beating N1X allowance company and N2X optional claiming foes at Laurel Park last November. His first two efforts in 2025 were over slightly softer ground and then he faced stakes competition last time out. I like that he is switching back onto Lasix for this race and he has races to run back to that are good enough to win. More importantly, in a race with minimal speed, he should be sitting close to the leaders with jockey Hector Karamanos aboard, who is always a wizard on the turf at Colonial Downs. I also like that Duarte Jr. is wheeling this horse back on 10-days rest after his stakes races, which indicates to me that the trainer believes the horse has a good race in him. I will say that #6 Uncle Jake (8/1) is a little interesting in this race as well. He is a speed horse who will try to take them all the way around and is second back from a lengthy layoff, so should have improved conditioning. He’ll need to move forward but he can win, albeit on the dirt, and will be making the move from Evangeline Downs for a low percentage trainer. When you’re trying to beat a heavy favorite, sometimes you need a couple of horses to do it, but hopefully these are some ideas you can use if you’re playing the race straight up or in a sequence.