Thursday’s six-horse featured sixth race is a highly competitive seven furlongs with a nicely blend of early, middle and late speed.
With recent trips providing no clues horsemen’s stats come into play and that’s where trainer Marco Salazar excels. Abuelo Paps (7-2) is making her third start off a layup; Salazar is a worthy 31% effective in LAY-3 scenarios.
Eerily is also batting 31% on the year, going 4-for-13, and the Shanghai Bobby colt has three exacta finishes in four starts here, including a win, and the trainer is 2-for-3 when teaming up with Horacio Karamanos, the 3-year-old’s regular rider.
Abuelo Paps has a sharp half-mile blowout coming into this and his stalking style suits the dynamics here.
As competitive as this race is, we need 3-1 minimum to bet him straight and will boxing an exacta with Prodigious Boy (2-1), dropping out of the Iowa Derby and meeting a Maryland-bred group for the first time.
