Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Defections in Dave’s Friend help El Areeb, Favorite Tale
The Dave’s Friend and Thirty Eight Go Go finally will be held Monday at Laurel Park after having been canceled twice due to winter weather.
The stakes were originally scheduled as the eighth and ninth races Dec. 30, but the card was canceled after race 7 due to deteriorating track conditions. They were called off again last Friday due to freezing temperatures and Thursday’s snowstorm.
Laurel was not scheduled to race Monday but after canceling the Friday card, the Monday card was approved by the Maryland Racing Commission. The stakes were redrawn for last Friday. That card has been brought back in its entirety on Monday.
The Monday forecast for Laurel, Md., calls for temperatures in the mid-30s, with some rain or snow possible.
The $100,000 Dave’s Friend, which had 14 original entrants, now has a 12-horse field and is expected to lose several other horses. Do Share, Eighty Three, and It’s the Journey were not entered back in the six-furlong race, and David Jacobson has a new player in Great Stuff, who finished a fast-closing fourth Dec. 23 in the Gravesend at Aqueduct.
Recruiting Ready, who would have been among the favorites, will be scratched by trainer Horacio De Paz.
“After the race was canceled Saturday, we’d lost what we had pointed to,” De Paz said. “We had a chance to put him on a van Tuesday, and he’s already back at Palm Meadows.”
Afleet Willy likely will be scratched by trainer Claudio Gonzalez and instead target the $100,000 Native Dancer, a 1 1/16-mile race at Laurel on Jan. 27. Afleet Willy was well drawn on the outside last Saturday but now has post 2.
“The post position is not good for him,” Gonzalez said.
The defections improve the chances of El Areeb and Favorite Tale, who should show good speed from posts 1 and 3.
Favorite Tale, an eighttime winner who has earned $960,000, has made three starts since returning from a 17-month layoff. He is well spotted at this level by Parx-based horseman Lupe Preciado.
El Areeb weakened to finish sixth in the City of Laurel Stakes on Nov. 11 while making his first start following knee surgery. He has worked four times since that race for Cal Lynch and has every right to improve. El Areeb, 4, won the Grade 3 Jerome and Grade 3 Withers at Aqueduct early last year.
Struth easily won the Howard Bender Memorial for statebreds at Laurel on Dec. 9. He was scratched Dec. 30, but Kieron Magee has entered him back.
The late-running Great Stuff stands to benefit if the pace gets too hot.
The Thirty Eight Go Go field remains at 12 after losing Going for Broke and Tin Type Gal and picking up Street Surrender and Sky Flower.
Street Surrender will make her debut for Graham Motion in the one-mile race for fillies and mares after West Point Thoroughbreds shipped her east from the Southern California barn of Jerry Hollendorfer. Street Surrender, who is 6 for 19 in her career, weakened to finish sixth in the Grade 2 Bayakoa at Los Alamitos in her most recent start.
Other leading contenders include Julerette, whom Ben Colebrook ships in from Kentucky; Tiz Rude, who has won two in a row for John Servis; and the hard-trying Pennsylvania-bred Power of Snunner.