FON Stakes
1 1/16 Miles Dirt Stake Purse $100.000 Three-Year-Old And Upward. At FON
FON Stakes has been around since 2015 when Simmer Down Stable won with Mill That Bird. Two stables return looking for repeat wins: Night Rider Stables who won in 2018 with Dog Eat Dog and last year with Heart Of Genghis; and Paradise Stable who won in 2022 with John Galt. This year’s race is a wonderful mixture of Graded stakes horses, stakes horses, allowance horses and claiming horses led by Graded stakes winner Big Bang Boom. Here’s the field:
Horse Owner Odds SRF
Big Bang Boom Rock Creek *3-1 98
Rock Hard Four YME Stable 10-1 96
Finding Nemo Night Rider Stables 8-1 93
Crazy Eyes The Sidley Stud 7-2 98
Prairie Eclipse Family Racing 4-1 96
Burger King Serenity Stables 3-1 93
Honolulu The Sidley Stud 6-1 95
Cheveley Chateau The Sidley Stud 8-1 92
Estonian Archangel Paradise Stable 20-1 92
Easily the class of the field, Big Bang Boom is a multiple Graded stakes winner with lifetime earnings of $1,318.72 and had a year strong enough to make it into the BC Classic last year. He comes to this race sharp as a tack with a two-length win in a TP allowance race last out that registered a race co-high SRF 98 last out. The only concern I have is that loss in the Grade III Mineshaft Stakes at FG, but then this is no Grade III race, is it?
2 Finding Nemo Night Rider Stables 93
Finding Nemo is one of those horses that got claimed cheap early and then did well in stakes races, so owners didn’t hesitate to race him in low claimers or stakes races, thus he has never really landed in any one direction or the other. Recently he had been doing the claiming thing, so Raj picked him off from Black N Gold Stable for $14.00 and immediately got a sharp win from him in a FG starter allowance at today’s distance. So, he looks like another longshot chance.
3 Crazy Eyes The Sidley Stud 98
The lead horse of Sidley’s trio, Crazy Eyes was making his living as a claiming horse until The Sidley Stud claimed him from Bears Stable for $4.00 three races ago. His most recent race was a third place deep close in the seven-furlong $150.00 Army Mule at GP. Now, many may extrapolate that as a potential win at today’s distance, but it rarely works that way. Still, reason to be hopeful.
4 Estonian Archangel Paradise Stable 92
Estonian Archangel took sixteen races to break his maiden, and he went right back to losing, so why not enter a stakes race?
5 Burger King Serenity Stables 93
Practically the co-favourite, Burger King is a young, strong, lightly raced Graded stakes runner, second in last year’s Grade I Goodwood Stakes at SA and this year’s Grade III LA Stakes at FG. In his return buy-up, Serenity Stables bought him in March for $85.00 and placed him here for his first start for the rebuilt stable.
6 Prairie Eclipse Family Racing 96
Prairie Eclipse has been a useful stakes horse since being claimed by Family Racing from Riggins Racing for $7.70. He doesn’t win stakes races, but he places a lot. He comes here in good form from GP and should be a strong itm chance.
7 Rock Hard Four YME Stable 96
Trained by legendary trainer YME Stable, Rock Hard Four would seem an unlikely second choice in my handicap in as much as he is five years old with only twelve races and never been in a stake race before, but I am a sucker for a hot horse on a streak, and this lad is streaking on the racetrack and burning the lights out in the morning. This looks like a good spot for an upset.
8 Cheveley Chateau The Sidley Stud 92
Cheveley Chateau won the $40.00 Fleming Breeders Derby at TUP at today’s distance and comes here today off a BTP allowance win at a mile.
9 Honolulu The Sidley Stud 95
Honolulu has been trying stakes races without success since being claimed from Nakamura Stables for $12.50. It was his fourteenth race and third owner before he won and started his stakes career and comes to this race just four races later off a TAM allowance win.
Categories: STAKES ARTICLES, Ungraded
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