In today’s sixth race, a maiden allowances for three year old on turf, a rescheduled turf event did not prevent Now And Later (8-1) from showing improvement in his second start.
The improvement was subtle but it was there and blinkers woke him up to the extent he showed some life and was closer to the early pace though never threatening in what was the deepest field this meet.
We know this because no fewer than four horses came out of the first race on DEC 3 , the key race of the meet, and the Shug McGaughey subsequently worked thrice subsequently.
His latest a half mile move turned out to be the best of 72 runners that morning and the switch to aggressive turf ace Jose Ferrer makes sense that more improvement is forthcoming.
the clincher is the nine furlong trip and this Phipps homebred has more than enough pedigree for the task, indeed the longest in the field. [See Tampa Bay in video section on HRI homepage].
We’re going for the gusto here and taking Now And Later at 6-1 or greater and key-boxing exactas with Oh Chic (10-1), back on his preferred surface and Junipero Serra (7-2) working crisply at Mark Casse’s Ocala farm.
4 Responses
John – congrats on the Eclipse speech shout out!!
Wasn’t that nice? I’ll have to get the champ’s email address and drop him a thank you. I loved the ersatz program toss, too.
Yeah it was great. I did a double take, like “did I just hear what I thought I heard??”
It was an honor to get a shout out from a champion horseplayer…