Saturday's Best Bet: Hazy Command will circle field in Carousel
Saturday’s seventh race at Oaklawn is the $150,000 Carousel Stakes for fillies and mares dashing six furlongs on the main track. The scheduled post time is 4:06 p.m. EST.
Click here for Oaklawn Park entries and results.
No. 1 Hazy Command (10-1) might be worth playing due to the possibility of a pace meltdown. Some of these can fly early but not this filly. She likes to sit back and make a late run, and that is exactly what she did in her last two local victories at this trip. Rafael Bejarano rides her well, and she always fires trifecta shots at this distance.
No. 5 Yuugiri (2-1) is a decent sort for Rodolphe Brisset. She romped in her 2021 sprint bow and routed in her next five starts, including a front-running score in the local Fantasy Stakes last spring. She set the pace and finished up the track in the Kentucky Oaks (G1) and disappeared for more than seven months. She resurfaced in a local allowance sprint in the mud, and she smartly wired the field as the favorite. She captured both her starts at six panels.
No. 7 Pretty Birdie (5-2) loves setting the pace and has run some quality races. She captured the Schuylerville Stakes in 2021 and the local Purple Martin and Poinsettia last year. She also has thrown in a trio of stakes clunkers, and I do not fully trust her if she locks horns with other speed horses in the early going.
No. 11 Samurai Charm (3-1) figures to press the pace while out in the clear. She won a pair of six-panel stakes races at Zia Park last year.
Get Jarrod’s Oaklawn Park analysis.
Wagers
No. 1 to win
Exacta Box 1-5
Trifecta 5-7/1-5-7-11/1-5-7-11
Trifecta 5/all/1
Recent Best Bet winners
Feb. 2 – Sunday Breeze/Good Old Charlie exacta ($24.20)
Feb. 3 – Macadamia/Buzz of New York exacta ($21)
Feb. 5 – Prince Abama/Masteroffoxhounds exacta ($44.40)
Feb. 7 – Nurturing ($10.60)
Feb. 8 – Her World/Only Kidding exacta ($15.40)
Feb. 9 – Stone Creator ($4.60), trifecta ($204)
Feb. 14 – Dreaming of Gerry/Good Culture exacta ($13.40)
Feb. 16 – Idiomatic/Polka Polenta/Maybe Later trifecta ($51.96)
Last Friday – Point and Shoot ($6.40)