Improving Lucullan can handle Muniz field

It’s Louisiana Derby Day on Saturday at Fair Grounds. That Grade 2, $1 million event is a Kentucky Derby prep worth 170 Derby points and heads a card that includes three other Grade 2 stakes: the $400,000 Fair Grounds Oaks, the $400,000 New Orleans Handicap, and the $300,000 Muniz Memorial Handicap.

There are also two Grade 2, $200,000 races at Santa Anita: the San Luis Rey and the Santa Monica.

Muniz Memorial Handicap

Synchrony was impressive winning last month’s Fair Grounds Handicap off a ninemonth layoff, charging from well off the pace to win by two lengths, going away, and earning a career-best Beyer Figure of 100. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Synchrony won back, but I will take a shot against him. Putting aside how he might react after delivering a career-best performance off such a long absence, and considering he might not react (okay, regress) at all, Synchrony is facing a tougher group than he dispatched most recently. I’m not wild about taking a not-so-great price on him under the circumstances.

Forge and Ring Weekend are logical alternatives capable of winning. Forge comes into this off a narrowly beaten second in the Tampa Bay Stakes to World Approval, who last year rode consecutive Grade 1 stakes victories in the Fourstardave, Woodbine Mile, and Breeders’ Cup Mile to the 2017 Eclipse Award as champion turf male. And Ring Weekend was a Grade 1 stakes winner in his younger days.

However, Forge was perfectly set up pacewise in Tampa, and I am thrown off him by World Approval’s subsequent empty performance in the Kilroe Mile. And Ring Weekend has lost a couple of steps, even if he won his recent seasonal bow at Gulfstream, an effort that was also nicely set up from a pace standpoint.

I’m going with the up-and-coming Lucullan. Lucullan improved steadily through his 3-year-old campaign last year and showed he fits at this level when he was a narrowly beaten second in the Hill Prince last fall. Lucullan was beaten just a neck by the highly regarded Yoshida, while finishing ahead of both the highly talented Grade 2 stakes winner Bricks and Mortar (yes, Bricks and Mortar had a tough trip that day, but still . . .) and the multiple graded stakes winner Frostmourne.

Lucullan made his 4-year-old debut last month at Gulfstream and was days the best, crushing a second-level allowance field. He sat back off a slow pace that did not favor his off-the-pace style, was shuffled back on the far turn, went four wide on the far turn, and yet still romped.

Louisiana Derby

My main position here is standing against My Boy Jack. My Boy Jack’s rail-skimming runaway victory in Oaklawn’s Southwest Stakes last time out came with the benefit of a track bias in favor of rail runners that seemed to get only stronger as that card progressed. Moreover, My Boy Jack will not get the sort of muddy, sealed track he caught at Oaklawn. He’s going to get a fast track, and his two fast-track efforts are not compelling.

Bravazo and Snapper Sinclair were a nose apart when first and second in last month’s Risen Star, the local prep for this race, but I’m looking for Snapper Sinclair to turn the tables. Jockey Adam Beschizza did nothing wrong on Snapper Sinclair in the Risen Star, but when you have the chance to make the switch to the reigning Eclipse Award jockey in Jose Ortiz, you do it. I’d like Ortiz to work out a stalking trip this time for Snapper Sinclair, but either way, he ought to make a difference of more than just a nose.

Santa Monica Stakes

I’m loath to include a five-horse race in the Warrior, but pickings are slim elsewhere. The San Luis Rey has a larger field, but I think it’s basically a two-horse race (Itsinthepost and Hayabusa One; I prefer the latter), and I think this actually has more options.

Multiple Grade 1 stakes winner Paradise Woods is top class, but I’m wondering if she is as effective when she doesn’t control the pace. She won’t control the pace here, not with the presence of Selcourt, whom I like to go wire to wire.

Selcourt prevailed in the Las Flores most recently after a bitter early speed duel, and beat the dangerous Skye Diamonds, who pulled a perfect trip. No one here can go with Selcourt early, making her as loose early as she wants to be.