Calling the winner is far from easy and a lay of the favourite Shakin It Up might be the best play with big doubts about his stamina...
Graeme North concentrates on the high-quality action at Sunland Park on Sunday...
It's very seldom in the States that racing at Sunland Park takes centre stage but it does for once on Sunday when the seven stakes races headed by the G3 Sunland Derby (off local time 17:40, 23:40 GMT) has lured some useful horses out into New Mexico for purses worth almost $1.5million.
The Sunland Derby is the last of the races worth 50 points to the winner in the new and disputed points system put in place this year to determine eligibility for the Kentucky Derby, and the first thing to say is that the quality of the nine-runner field it has attracted doesn't merit it being given equal standing with the likes of the Holy Bull, for example, in which current Timeform top-rated three-year-old Itsmyluckyday beat top 2012 juvenile Shanghai Bobby. For all top trainers Bob Baffert and Todd Pletcher are represented in a bid for an opportunistic invite to a race their respective charges as things stand wouldn't get anywhere near if qualification was decided on merit.
Top on Timeform ratings by 4lb and Morning Line favourite at 3.5 is Shakin It Up, one of two horses in the field trained by Baffert and the only Graded Stakes winner in the field. That win in the San Vincente Stakes at Santa Anita last time out (where the reopposing Mudflats was well held) was gallant enough, and there's little doubt he has unquestionably the best form credentials running to a Timeform rating of 106 on three separate occasions, but he still has to prove his stamina going two turns and beyond seven furlongs for the first time. And, being by the dual Breeders' Cup Sprint winner Midnight Lute out of an unraced mare by the Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Vindication, there has to be a big doubt whether he will see out the nine furlongs.
Baffert's other runner (and 7 on the Morning Line) is Govenor Charlie who beat subsequent winner Footbridge in a maiden on the same Santa Anita card that Shakin It Up won the San Vincente and he seems likely to make the most improvement of the three twice-raced maiden winners in the line-up. That trio includes Pletcher's Abraham but the form of his Gulfstream Park win is nothing obviously special with four of the sextet he beat that day having been beaten again since but in his favour he has at least shown he stays this trip.
Top local trainer Joel Marr saddles Dry Summer who beat the re-opposing Show Some Magic and Stormdriver in the local prep race that commemorates the last winner of the Sunland Park Derby that went on to win the Derby, the Mine That Bird Stakes, and he shouldn't be far away with home-track advantage a much bigger factor at Sunland Park than many other American venues. He's a better horse than his three unsuccessful attempts in Graded company so far suggest, albeit one of those was in the Breeders' Cup Turf, but all the same it would be a surprise if he was good enough. Calling the winner is far from easy and a lay of the favourite Shakin It Up might be the best play with big doubts about his stamina.
There looks a decent betting opportunity in the preceding Sunland Park Oaks (17:08, 23:08 GMT) if the Morning Line is to be believed with the Bob Baffert representative Midnight Lucky priced up very short at 3.5 in a field among which three-time winner Unusual Way and the Todd Pletcher-trained Majestic River have better form and, more pertinently perhaps, proven stamina.
Midnight Lucky won her maiden in a fast time admittedly at Santa Anita but like her stable-companion Shakin It Up is by Midnight Lute and the fact her dam was a maiden sprinter too suggests she is worth taking on with proven stayer and track performer Countess Curlin another in the mix. Twice-raced Majestic River has the best form without allowing for likely further improvement, however, and the 5 Morning Line forecast looks quite generous.
Rose's Desert in the 15:13 (21:13 GMT) and Safe Trip in the 16:09 (22:09 GMT) also both look to hold very good claims.
Recommended bets:
1pt lay Shakin It Up in the Sunland Derby
1pt back Majestic River in the Sunland Oaks
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