Angles abound in allowance feature

There are plenty of angles – and plenty of plausible winners – in the featured ninth race Saturday at Fair Grounds.

The race is carded at about 1 1/16 miles on turf, has a series of high-end allowance conditions, and also is open to $80,000 claimers, of which there are three among the nine entrants.

One of those horses, Cammack, is part of the oldhorse angle. He’s a little more than a month shy of turning 9 – and still is going strong. Cammack starts Saturday for trainer Neil Pessin but has been under the care of Chris Block (who doesn’t come to Fair Grounds) most of his career. A fine career it has been – 36 starts, 13 wins, and more than $440,000 in earnings. Cammack lost his first three starts of 2018 but comes into Saturday’s start on a two-race win streak.

Cammack is drawn in post 5. Lining up just to his right is another graybeard, 8-year-old Cooptado. Cooptado was born in Argentina, has spent time in Dubai, and is set to race for the 43rd time Saturday. Like Cammack, he is not ready to hang up his horseshoes. Cooptado last raced Sept. 22 at Laurel, where he finished second, beaten less than a length, at odds of 115-1 in the $100,000 Laurel Turf Cup. Last December at Fair Grounds, Cooptado won the Tenacious, a dirt-route stakes, as a 17-1 shot. The lesson: Don’t count the old guy out.

Then there is the Grade 1 angle. Two horses exit Grade 1 races, Great Wide Open a second-place finish in the Shadwell Turf Mile on Oct. 6 at Keeneland, and Twenty Four Seven a seventh-place finish Aug. 11 in the Arlington Million. Great Wide Open, a 6-year-old, won last March at Fair Grounds in a similar spot, though that start came at one mile, his preferred trip. He was an 81-1 shot in the Shadwell, a strange race whose winner, Next Shares, made zero impression in the Breeders’ Cup Mile.

Twenty Four Seven is interesting. He won a lesser race last March 23 at Fair Grounds making his first start for trainer Roger Brueggemann and was ambitiously spotted last summer after adding a pair of allowance wins to his Fair Grounds victory. Brueggemann does well with layoff horses, and Twenty Four Seven, after plateauing in late summer, might be ready for a peak race coming back fresh.

The accomplished New Yorkbred Twisted Tom could be a key player should the race be rained onto dirt, while his Mike Stidham-trained stablemate Memory Bank is not without a chance on turf. Nor, really, is anyone in this deep, substantive spot.

Devileye looks to rebound

Trainer Michele Boyce bluntly said she didn’t believe Devileye would prosper making his turf debut Oct. 27 at Hawthorne in an Illinois-bred stakes race. She was right. In 10 previous starts Devileye had racked up seven wins and three seconds, but in the Buck’s Boy, a turf route, he finished seventh.

The grass experiment at least got Devileye a race, his first after a four-month injury break, and Devileye is back on dirt as the horse to beat in the featured seventh race Saturday at Hawthorne. There are multiple allowance conditions here, as well as a $27,500 claiming option, but it’s not hard to see Devileye is a snug fit. Devileye has been lightly campaigned, and though he is about to turn 5 remains a horse with upside – upside he need not even tap to win the Hawthorne feature.