Saturday play: Cox runner can rebound in Kentucky Jockey Club

Whenever a horse throws a clunker after running a good race, it becomes a challenge to analyze that type of pattern. For example, in the Grade 2, $400,000 Kentucky Jockey Club at Churchill Downs, Awesome Road shows a bad running line after breaking his maiden with a solid speed figure. 

Which running line in Awesome Road’s form should handicappers trust in his second graded-stakes attempt? Despite his puzzling effort in the Breeders’ Futurity (G1) at Keeneland, he likely deserves another chance here, especially after watching some of his morning workouts. 

Awesome Road broke his maiden on Aug. 27 at Ellis Park. He won by 2 1/2 lengths over a good 2-year-old in Stronghold, who went on to break his maiden at Churchill Downs on Oct. 1 and finish second in the Bob Hope Stakes (G3) at Del Mar last weekend against the freakish Nysos.

For that maiden win, Awesome Road received a 108 TimeformUS speed figure, which is a number that might win this race. In all likelihood, it will not take a huge number to take this race. While the Kentucky Jockey Club normally ends up as a strong prep, this one seems weaker.

Awesome Road then took a shot at the Breeders’ Futurity for his first chance to earn Derby points and never tried after spending most of the race near the back. He lost interest by the far turn and fell behind by 18 1/2 lengths in an odd performance after that promising maiden win.

Cross the Breeders’ Futurity effort out. Sometimes horses turn in clunkers for no reason and run back to their previous race or improve upon it. In this case, Awesome Road only makes the third start of his career in the Kentucky Jockey Club this week, which means he will likely improve upon his debut win at Ellis Park rather than simply match it.

Awesome Road’s morning workouts support his case too. While there are a couple of workouts from him to watch on kentuckybred.org, the one on Nov. 10 does enough to show the talent inside of him. 

Awesome Road went five furlongs in company with Best Actor, the 4-year-old colt who won the Smarty Jones (G3) last year. Best Actor has already come back this year in sharp form with optional-claiming wins against good fields at both Aqueduct and Churchill Downs.

In any case, Awesome Road began the work a little behind Best Actor, before eventually edging past Best Actor near the finish line under no visible urging and galloping out past his more accomplished stablemate on the second turn. The time is not important, although Awesome Road did complete his five furlongs in 59.8 seconds if that means anything. 

With his maiden win and good recent work in mind, Awesome Road is the choice. At 7/2 on the morning line, he even offers some value.

Two entries look intriguing for the second slot of the exacta wheel.

Dancing Groom made a mild move to finish third by a distant margin in the Champagne Stakes (G1) won by Timberlake at Aqueduct. Before that decent effort to get a Grade 1 placing, Dancing Groom broke his maiden by five lengths at Saratoga in an off-the-turf race on Aug. 19.

Against these runners, Dancing Groom could pick off enough horses to finish second. The stretchout will help and Javier Castellano’s presence is a plus.  

Nomos also deserves consideration. Although Nomos has only run mildly in his turf stakes efforts with a fourth in the With Anticipation (G3) and a disappointing 12th in the Bourbon (G2), he might improve on dirt.

In Nomos’ Nov. 10 workout in company with his stablemate Moonlight, who is also trained by Todd Pletcher, Nomos arguably outworks Moonlight by staying ahead in the stretch and galloping out past him.

Moonlight had run second in the Street Sense (G3) on Oct. 29.

Both of those runners fit underneath Awesome Road, who looks too good in the mornings to throw another clunker in this spot. Expect Awesome Road to rebound off his poor run at Keeneland and show his true talents against this field.

The final play is to bet Awesome Road to win and bet him on top of both Dancing Groom and Nomos in second in an exacta wheel. In terms of fair odds to go ahead with the two bets, Awesome Road needs to be 8-5 or higher during live wagering.

Win: 1 (at 8-5 or longer)

Exacta: 1 over 4,5