River City Handicap – Grade III
CD Race #4 1 1/8m Turf Stake
Purse $125.000 For Three Year Olds And Upward.

1st Grande Chai Latte The A Stable Hernandez B J Jr

This result brought back memories of those late great four year old autogens. Back in those dark days we saw four year old maidens coming out in their second start and beating BC champions and whilst there were no BC champions in the field today the result had that same feel about it. In truth this home bred is a very good horse and has been brilliantly and patiently trained by his relatively inexperienced trainer. They should be very proud of this winner even if on paper it looked unlikely. Beaten in a low level maiden on his only other turf run he scraped home in a dirt maiden last time on only his third career start. Today thrown in the deep end he found a rabbit infused pace and got the splits at the right time to gain a famous victory. Looking back his 1.34 and 3 work for the turf mile when he was still a maiden was probably the clue that most of us missed but his form coupled with a short femur and an average heavy forehand put most of us off. I am not sure how much racing he will stand but he is in the right hands to find some good races if he can hold his frail conformation together.

2nd Sezarchai Ekli Stable Geroux F

Stalked the very fast early pace and it was pretty impressive that he was still in te fight at the end. The closers were all tripping over each other and this one just kept going. Like the third horse this one looks brilliant in overnights but just cant seem to get the breaks in stakes races.

3rd Bubba Kush Threshold Beschizza A

His jockey seemed content to lose this race as he never really used the steering wheel when making ground late off the fast pace. Rather than making gaps he waited and when they finally came the race was all over. The horse did well to get within a half length of the winner with zero help from the AI.

4th Steel Home Nakamura Stables Santana R Jr

Maybe this one got a little too close to the fast early pace because when the closers came he had no breath left. A game fourth beaten less than a length suggests that his new trainer is starting to get a line on him, he will be winning soon.

Categories: Grade III, STAKES ARTICLES