My Sunland Derby plays for today;
- #10 Dream Baby Dream to win, place and show for $6/$12/$12
- #10 Dream Baby Dream with #3 New York Central, #5 Peace, #9 Choo Choo, and #4 Hollywood Star in four separate exacta boxes for $2
- #3 New York Central, #10 Dream Baby Dream, #5 Peace, and #4 Hollywood Star trifecta box for $1
This was a tough race to narrow it down, but I had to give Runaway Ghost the boot even though he ranks high on the numbers and should be a good price. Just think he may get caught up in a pace battle up front, and I didn't care for the way he conceded ground to the winner in his last race despite it being a slower pace than what he's likely to see today and that he had the preferred outside position. Might be a little cheap as far as classing up with this type of field, and also has the possibility of regressive pattern to him even without being involved in a projected fast pace today.
I like Dream Baby Dream quite a bit here obviously, as he should have a race shape in his favour for once, which he hasn't had lately. Hollywood Star benefits from that same race shape, but visually Dream Baby Dream looks like the better closer. He has a touch more early speed than Hollywood Star and has always gotten out of the gates really well in comparison. Gets blinkers added today, which should also help him get better early positioning. Also, unlike Hollywood Star who's more of a plodding sustained type, Dream Baby Dream has shown agility and better acceleration when it comes to his turn of foot. He actually has a closing kick, and should be in a better position to use it than Hollywood Star once the early leaders start to tire and the late running starts. Dream Baby Dream is also coming into this race after having literally paired up his last two races, and his numbers have also gotten better each time he was stretched out in distance. New York Central beat him last time out by just over two lengths, but that one had the rode a gold rail that day, and also sat up front over a soft pace. Dream Baby Dream got no pace to run at that day, and also had to brake hard on the backstretch when another horse in front of him started acting like a retard. He still made a nice run around the turn and into the stretch, though, making up over 3 lengths on New York Central. Dream Baby Dream was the best horse in that race to me, and it was a nice allowance field with New York Central, Trangress, Zulkifar (who was hyped up as a potential Derby contender going into that race) all running in it. The race before that, Dream Baby Dream finished 3 lengths behind Title Ready (who's a nice horse and would likely be a pretty heavy favourite in this race today) in another race where the race shape was against him from a pace standpoint. He was still able to pick up 4 lengths in the late running, though, despite not getting the pace to run at.