SSM Sprint ($75.000 Purse)
GP- For Four Year Olds and Upward Foaled In FL
Six Furlongs on the Dirt
January 14, 2023

This will be the 20th time that the SSM Sprint is held within our game, but unfortunately there is no turning back the clock to the purse level when the race debuted. In 2004, this race ran for $300.000, a far cry from the $75.000 that the race runs for today. 2010 was the first year that we began to see this gradual decline in the purse, and now one cannot even win triple digits. Only four horses showed up for our first $75.000 edition last year, a race that was won by Asgar’s Higher Drift. He went on to have a strong year, winning much more in his other win of 2022, the Grade 2 Kelso Handicap before eventually finishing second in the BC Dirt Mile. We’ll have four again this year, and we almost did not even have that. Only two horses were entered into this race as late as Tuesday, with the fourth horse getting in just before the entry deadline. Let’s take a look at them.

#1- Catch The Heat (T Boy Racing, ridden by Jo Ruiz)- While the trainer’s best chance to win the race would seem to be in the next post, Catch The Heat isn’t just a horse that’s here to fill a race. The seven-year-old gelding has won twelve times over a 38-race career, but the earnings are still under $100.000. He’s been racing at smaller tracks, and many of them claimers, but it is his last race, running third (but missing by less than a length) in a SUN starter allowance that has be thinking we should not completely dismiss this one.

#2- John Deere (T Boy Racing, ridden by Al Gonzalez)- Make no mistake, John Deere is the one that T Boy Racing’s best chance is from, and likely why Catch The Heat is here. John Deere has mowed down the field thirteen times over his 33 races with three of those wins coming in his last six starts. He’s mostly been running smaller ungraded stakes now, and the SSM Sprint certainly fits that mold, but don’t forget that John Deere is an ex-BC champion, winning the 2020 BC Sprint. He’s not that good anymore, but he is still very competitive, and I don’t think anyone can run like him in this field.

#3- Bodie Lighthouse (First Flight Stable, ridden by S X Bridgmohan)- This five-year-old gelding really has not shown a lot in recent races, so based on that you wouldn’t have expected to see him here. Back in September, he had a win in a N1X allowance on the grass at LAD, but that has been the exception to the form. More than likely, he’s here because the trainer knows that maybe he can run like that again and this was a small field. His last race was the first time he ran on dirt, and he was very competitive with a strong time turned in by the race winner just ten days ago.

#4- Pearls Before Swine (Mo Mentum Farm, ridden by P Lopez)- Picked up in private sales for $19.000 last May and went on to earn two wins, each in overnights, for Mo Mentum Farm. Those victories moved him into stakes race, beginning with the CC Jewel where he was third, then last month he was second in the Marion, which is for FL-breds. However, note that he finished one position ahead of John Deere there. He’ll keep John Deere honest again with one less furlong to run. I’m picking his rival to take the rematch, but these two are the class of the field.

Prediction: 2-4-1-3

— NS

Categories: STAKES ARTICLES, Ungraded