By CWayne
Calder's fifth race is a long sprint for 3 year old fillies and mares running for a non-graded stakes purse of $55,000.00. It's scheduled for the turf, but with a 60% forecast of thunderstorms (as of this writing), there's a better than even chance it will be moved to the dirt and lengthened to a mile.
Many Kisses (#1 at 8 to 1) has finished in the money 4 of her 5 races since breaking her maiden and has performed on turf and on off-track dirt. The only knock against her is her lack of experience at this class and she does tend to stalk the pace which could hurt her if the race stays at 7 ½ furlongs.
Garter Belt (#8 at 5 to 1) has 2 wins out of 3 starts as a 3 year old, all at this grade or better, and could be a real threat if the race is moved to dirt. She's carrying an extra 4 pounds and performed poorly in her only turf start.
Brinca (#9 at 8 to 1) is used to this caliber of competition but lacks turf performance and hasn't fared well since shipping over from Tampa. She was beaten by Garter Belt on the dirt last time out, but could benefit from the shortened distance.
We're going 4 deep on this one, in part because it's a 10 horse field, partially because of the chance of scratches and primarily because we're puzzled. One Proud Lady (#2 at 8 to 1) is the odd-ball in this race. With only 2 races to her name against older competition in lower classed races, she's won both on a sloppy track at Calder. While class challenged in this race, she is running on second time lasix which sometimes yields a performance bump. What does her trainer know that we should be aware of???
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