Halo, it's LeComte time again!
By: Nicolle Neulist, Blinkers-Off
LeComte, by Boston out of the mare
Reel, is best remembered as the only horse to defeat the mighty Lexington. On April 8, 1854, LeComte beat Lexington in
two straight four-mile heats, and set a new four-mile record of 7 minutes, 26
seconds. LeComte is not the only horse out of his dam Reel who is still
remembered with a present-day stakes: such an honor also belongs to his
half-sister Prioress, by Sovereign.
Racing from ages two through seven, Prioress was the first American-bred
and American-owned horse to win in England, and still has a three-year-old
fillies' sprint run in her honour at Saratoga.
Though no winner of the LeComte has
gone on to win the Kentucky Derby, two of its recent winners have gone on to
win the Preakness Stakes: Oxbow (2013) and War of Will (2019). Several other LeComte victors have gone on to
Classic placings: No Le Hace (1972) finished second in both the Kentucky Derby
and the Preakness, Linkage (1982) finished second in the Preakness, and Hard
Spun (2007) finished second in the Kentucky Derby and third in the Preakness.
Race 13: LeComte Stakes (G3), three-year-olds,
one and one sixteenth miles on the dirt, post time 5:55pm CST
As so often happens with early-season
three-year-old preps, the field for the LeComte drew a blend of proven stakes
horses and runners who are stepping up from lower-profile spots to the big
time. Among the proven, Scabbard
comes in as the class of the group.
Though he has yet to win in stakes company, he has yet to run a poor
race in stakes company, either. He won
on debut in a sprint at Churchill Downs last June and has emerged as a
late-running sort who will reliably mount a run. He rallied for second in the Saratoga Special
(G2), second in the Iroquois, (G3), and then ran fourth in the Breeders’ Cup
Classic (G1).
Scabbard will be pleased to see all the speed
drawn into the race: Sycamore Run, Shashashakemeup, and Perfect
Star are likely to go, and it’s hard to imagine Mr. Monomoy, Bango,
or Lynn’s Map too far off the pace, either. So, assuming there isn’t some rampant speed
bias on LeComte day, Scabbard stands to get the right trip. But, as the likely favorite, even lukewarm as
that favoritism may be, it still seems prudent to look beyond Scabbard’s
class and wonder whether there are any logical alternatives, since he hasn’t
gotten all the way there since a maiden race fairly early in the juvenile
season.
Trainer Steve Asmussen mounts a
three-pronged attack with Excession, Silver State, and Halo
Again. Excession comes out of
the same first-level allowance race as Lynn’s Map and Mr. Monomoy,
having crossed the wire third behind that pair.
He can pass horses and he can get the trip, though with six starts
underneath him? He has talent but may
not have quite as much upside as some other runners have. In short, he is the least intriguing card in
Asmussen’s hand.
Lightly-raced Silver State will
probably be the shortest price of the Asmussen bunch, but is a lightly-raced
colt with plenty of upside. He
dead-heated for the win debut in a six-and-a-half-furlong maiden special weight
at Churchill, almost ten lengths clear of the third-place horse: Bango,
who he faces again in this. The horse
with whom he dead heated, Relentless Dancer, came back to dismantle the field
in a Louisiana-bred stakes. Silver
State then handled the stretch to a mile with aplomb, tracking a couple of
lengths off the pace in a first-level allowance over that same course and
missing in a head-bobber. Both races
came back suitably fast. He has the
pedigree to handle the step up to two turns, being by Hard Spun out of an
Empire Maker mare who has produced some two-turn form among her foals. And, with all the speed in the race, Silver
State should be able to sit a good trip far enough off the speed not to get
burned up, but not so far back that he has too much to do.
But, in a field of fourteen
fast-developing three-year-olds? If you
find the right price horse with whom to take a shot, take that shot. This maxim brings us to the longest-priced of
the Asmussen trio on the morning line, Halo Again. He is the only one in the LeComte field
cutting back in trip; in his most recent start, on November 23, he won the
nine-furlong Coronation Futurity by a head.
This is a tougher race, of course: he beat Canadian-breds on Tapeta in
the Coronation Futurity, and this is an open stakes on dirt. But his maiden win came in a Churchill maiden
special on the dirt, so this won’t be his first foray on dirt or against
well-meant open horses. He stands to get
a better setup than in the Coronation Futurity, too. That day, he tracked an uncontested leader
while sitting inside a horse who was rank early, got shuffled back through the
turn, and came back again up the fence to win.
In the LeComte, there should be a sharper pace for him to reel in, and
even though this is a bigger field it’s a positive that Halo Again knows
how to get through traffic. He will have
to take a step forward, but he has a solid foundation and stands to be a great
price.
Selections:
#7 Halo Again (15/1)
#9 Silver State (5/1)
#4 Scabbard (7/2)
Longshot: There are a couple of credible closers who
deserve a mention. Enforceable
comes out of the Kentucky Jockey Club, and looks to have found his home at two
turns on the dirt. But he stands to be a
shorter price than some others, and appeals more underneath than on top. With that, what about the one who stands to
be a longer price, and actually beat Enforceable that day at Churchill? #1 Finnick the Fierce (15/1) took a huge
step forward when he ran second behind Silver Prospector in the Kentucky Jockey
Club (G2), and may have to prove that his move forward meant he was actually
improving, and wasn’t a question of him being some kind of a slop monster. (As of Thursday afternoon, the chances for
rain at Fair Grounds on Saturday are not zero, but are no sure thing,
either.) But, there’s also the chance
that at least part of what moved Finnick the Fierce forward was the fact
that he was stretching out to a route for the first time. It’s not clear that his pedigree will take
him much longer than a mile and a sixteenth – but we’re not trying to handicap
the Derby, we’re trying the handicap the LeComte, and the LeComte is a mile and
a sixteenth. Finnick the Fierce
should get a sharp pace to rally into and can sweeten the exotics once again.
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