‘Critical Way’ looks quickest in Get Serious

Francatelli is fast. French Reef is fast. But are they as fast as The Critical Way? We’ll see when the gate springs for the $75,000 Get Serious Stakes, the featured ninth race on Saturday at Monmouth Park, but the answer is, probably not.

The Critical Way at the ripe age of 7 has hit career-best form. Brilliant speed is his chief asset and jockey Paco Lopez is sure to deploy it in this five-furlong turf sprint.

“Going five furlongs, you’re always going to get some speed, but if he breaks good, he should be tough,” said Jose Delgado, who took over training The Critical Way last August and has overseen the Tizway gelding’s transformation from high-level claimer to stakes horse.

“I slowed things down in the training,” Delgado said. “He only runs five, 5 1/2 furlongs, so I just try to make him happy in the morning. The horse just started getting better and better. Even in the stall he’s a happy horse now.”

Racing over a “good” Monmouth course last October, The Critical Way set the pace and held second in the Virgil “Buddy” Raines Stakes. He easily won a Tampa turfsprint allowance in December and since then has faced the best grass sprinters in North America. On Jan. 1 at Gulfstream, he was third behind Imprimis and Extravagant Kid, who came back to win the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint in Dubai and finish third this past Tuesday in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes at Royal

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Ascot. The Critical Way beat Imprimis, an elite grass horse the last several seasons, in a Tampa Bay stakes, and at Keeneland in April he was third behind Bound for Nowhere, another top-shelf runner, and Imprimis. On May 15 at Pimlico, The Critical Way set a frenetic pace and was nipped as the favorite by Firecrow in the $100,000 Jim McKay Turf Sprint.

“He’s the same horse now he was then,” said Delgado. “He’s feeling good. Every time he runs so hard.”

If the Get Serious pace gets too serious, Boldor looks like the right horse. Boldor finished fourth, beaten about 2 1/2 lengths by The Critical Way, in the Turf Sprint at Pimlico, just the third grass race of his career. The first of those, two autumns ago on a sodden Churchill course, can be ignored, and neither of his two recent trips have been ideal.

Boldor races best as a onerun closer and wound up too close to the pace when beaten by the sharp Wesley Wardtrained winner Maven in Keeneland in April. At Pimlico he encountered traffic trouble that at least mildly compromised him, though on both of their best days, there’s no simple way for Boldor to deal with The Critical Way’s speed and heart.