Without Voodoo Song Ballagh Rocks likely favorite in Lure
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » The $100,000 Lure Stakes, the 11th race on today’s card, is written for fouryear-olds and up who have not won a graded race in 2018. This year’s field is loaded with past graded winners, though, in what is a pretty well-balanced field of nine or ten older turf horses.
The New York-bred Voodoo Song is the morningline favorite at 5-2. The 4-year-old English Channel colt is 2-for-3 at the 1 1/16-mile distance and a perfect 4-for-4 at Saratoga Race Course. On Thursday, however, trainer Linda Rice announced that Voodoo Song would probably be scratched due to the anticipated soft turf conditions today.
If Voodoo Song is scratched, Ballagh Rocks becomes the morning-line favorite at 4-1. The son of Stormy Atlantic competed in six Grade 1s last year and into this past April, hitting the board in three of them. His best race was a third, beaten just a length, in the Shadwell Mile. Ballagh Rocks comes into the Lure off a fifth as the favorite in the Grade 3 Poker on June 17.
Ticonderoga is next at 5-1. This $850,000 son of Tapit (as a yearling in 2015) has been in the exacta in five of six starts at today’s distance but has a mixed record in stakes company. The Lure is Ticonderoga’s first start in an ungraded race after a nearly steady diet of graded stakes since late 2016. He comes in off a neck beat in an optional claimer at a mile and a sixteenth.
As the defending champion in the Lure, Zennor may seem like an overlay here a 6-1. The thing is, the 6-year-old Medaglia d’Oro gelding has not raced since. Also, the Lure – which he won by a length at 14-1 – was his first stakes start. On the plus side is the fact that Zennor is 2-for-3 at Saratoga.
The rest of the field consists of Inspector Lynley (6-1),Conquest Panthera (8-1), Blacktype (121), Mr Cub (12-1), Camelot Kitten (20-1) and Dalarna (30-1).