Green Up can rate, work out right trip

There’s a single Grade 1 Saturday in North America. It’s not the Tampa Bay Derby, but with Kentucky Derby fever heating up, Tampa Bay will get a lot of attention.

The Tampa Bay Derby didn’t do much for me, and while the Hillsborough, the best of the undercard stakes, is an appealing early season filly and mare turf contest, I couldn’t settle on a play. Even sans Hillsborough, this can be a Ladies Day, the focus on female-restricted stakes from coast to coast.

Beholder Mile

Thrice-started Sweet Azteca has raced on the pace in her three sprints, so imagine the speed she’s going to bring to her first route in this Grade 1. Sweet Azteca might have upset potential if she can escape pace pressure, but more than that, she makes things rough on likely favorite Adare Manor.

Drawn inside Sweet Azteca, Adare Manor can’t get to her preferred spot on the engine, and if jockey Juan Hernandez attempts to let the stretch-out sprinter go and work to her outside, he might find his path blocked by other pace players.

Adare Manor is a great horse to wager against at a short price. She shines when things go her way, which often happens in all those four- and five-horse Southern California fields, but is not really a horse to overcome adversity, and Adare Manor has been beating the same rival, Desert Dawn, over and over.

Green Up is a moderately strong selection to win the Beholder. Many will view her 100 Beyer Speed Figure in August 2022 as an outlier, but I see it more as a fulfillment of latent ability.

Green Up bombed in the Cotillion Stakes a month after her peak Beyer and since has struggled to get onto a racing pattern, but while she hasn’t started since returning Nov. 5 from a layoff of more than seven months, this has been a different kind of gap between outings. First off, that November race was stronger than the speed figure. Frank’s Rockette was past her prime that day, but Green Up still easily disposed of her in upper stretch and was a galloping winner at a distance short of her best.

She soon was sent to Florida and has been breezing steadily since Dec. 31 at Palm Beach Downs, and in the morning, at least, she has been in a different league than her workmate and fellow Beholder starter, Interstatedaydream.

Green Up has the best asset in horse racing – rateable speed. She travels strongly in the bridle but also responds to her rider’s requests. That approach can get the mare a favorable trip as connections ship crosscountry seeking not just a first Grade 1, but a first graded stakes win.

Florida Oaks

Austere really caught the eye in her two Kentucky starts last year, and despite coming out of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, she can offer value in her 3-year-old debut.

Austere did get a perfect trip in the Breeders’ Cup, saving ground in the pocket and finding room along the fence in upper stretch before finishing fifth, beaten two lengths. Two things: The four horses that beat her rate higher than anything in this field, and Austere gave the impression of a filly who already had plateaued.

Austere has kept to a strong steady winter work pattern for an excellent layoff trainer, Brendan Walsh. The only publicly available video showing one of those breezes was from Feb. 4, and while Austere still was more than a month away from a race and worked accordingly, she made a favorable impression.

Some solid fillies showed up here, including Weigh the Risks, who I suspect will take plenty of betting, but Austere looks like the right one.

Azeri

Shotgun Hottie won’t be as high as her 8-1 morning line but still could wind up a playable price in a modest renewal of the Azeri.

Hot and Sultry is a fast filly, and her terrible start in the Bayakoa makes that race a throw-out. At heart, she could be more a one-turn miler, and Hot and Sultry might find herself part of a contested pace at depressed odds.

If Shotgun Hottie got back to her performance in the Molly Pitcher last summer, she’d beat an in-form Hot and Sultry, and even her previous showing, in the Lady’s Secret, might suffice. Returning from a long layoff in the Bayakoa, the mare pulled much too hard for her head, leading to her late fade. Expect Shotgun Hottie to be more settled and to make a major impression.