Oaklawn Report #2

Three Stars of the Week

– 1st Star: Sugar Shock (KY) – The star of last years three year old series returned on Saturday in the American Beauty, and made it very interesting but still hit the wire just in time to earn a nose victory. Considering she hadn’t raced since June and was shortening up in distance, Sugar Shock basically won this race on class alone.  What’s next for her could get interesting.  Don’t Tell Sophia is the top mare on the grounds and will be pointing towards the big races left on the schedule…will Sugar Shock be her challenger?

– 2nd Star: Ivan Fallunovalot (TX) – The sprint division at Oaklawn this year is extremely tough, and it got EVEN TOUGHER last Thursday when Ivan Fallunovalot ran a huge race in the feature.  Facing tough competition, he flew to the front and never looked back winning easily under a hand ride and earning a triple digit beyer number.  This effort will certainly throw him into a stakes next time out, and judging by that performance he’ll be ready to fire.

– 3rd Star: Subtle Indian (KY) – It’s that time of year where Oaklawn fans are looking for three year olds, and Subtle Indian fits the bill perfectly!  He hadn’t been seen since a nice debut win this summer at Canterbury, but he returned Friday in an allowance at Oaklawn and crushed the field by four lengths.  Perhaps his breeding suggests he’ll be more of a sprinter/miler, however you can’t fault his brilliance so far.  Plenty of options for this one to run in next time out…

Flop of the Week

– Brewing (FL) – He was the favorite in the same allowance race as Ivan Fallunovalot, but Brewing simply couldn’t match strides and faded to forth.  It’s definitely not time to get down on this horse as he was coming off a layoff and ran into some monsters, but this is probably not what the connections had in mind for him.  We’ll see if he can bounce back next time out.