Lucky Coin features plenty of experience
By Jeff Scott
Ready for Rye (6-1), like Undrafted, has considerable experience in graded company. The City Zip gelding has been back and forth between dirt and turf over the past two years.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Plenty of experience lined up for Friday’s $100,000 Lucky Coin Stakes, which includes an 8-year-old, two 7-year-olds, a six-year-old and a trio of five-year-olds.
Favoritism in the 5½-furlong race falls to six-year-old Dowse’s Beach. The New York-bred Disco Rico gelding is having his best year, having won a couple of optional claimers gate-to-wire, and then being caught late in the Grade 2 Play the King at Woodbine. Dowse’s Beach is 3-for-4 at the distance and 3-for-4 on the Saratoga turf. They’ll have him to catch.
Loose on the Town (31) returns to turf after a pair of runner-up finishes on dirt. The five-year-old Speightstown gelding has won 2-of-4 turf starts, and sports an open-lengths win at the Lucky Coin distance, albeit on yielding ground.
Big Rock (9/2) is another horse who will be running at his favored distance (3for-5) and on his favorite turf course (3-for-3). The five-year-old son of Rockport Harbor has hit the board in all four 2017 starts, and exits a neck win at 5½ furlongs here on Aug. 3.
With an upset win in the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2015 – and a decent sixth in the same race one year later – Undrafted (61) has the most back class of the Lucky Coin starters. Undrafted has won only once in his last eight starts (an allowance at Keeneland back in April), but the seven-year-old Purim gelding remains a threat on his best day.
Ready for Rye (6-1), like Undrafted, has considerable experience in graded company. The City Zip gelding has been back and forth between dirt and turf over the past two years. His win at the Lucky Coin distance occurred here at the Spa.
Dream Mover (10-1), We Deer You (10-1), Spring to the Sky (15-1 and Doctor J Dub (30-1) round out the field of nine.