An Early Read on Top Turfers

The Grade I $400,000 Eddie Read Stakes will be run as the fourth race on Saturday’s 10-race card with an approximate post time of 3:30 p.m.

 

Midnight Storm, runner-up to Talco in the Shoemaker Mile on June 13 at Santa Anita, is the 8-5 favorite on oddsmaker Russ Hudak’s morning line. A 4-year-old son of Pioneerof the Nile trained by Phil D’Amato, Midnight Storm has four wins from nine starts and $403,610 in career earnings and is 2-for-2 on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course here.

 

He won the 2014 Del Mar Derby by 3 ¼ lengths under Tyler Baze, who has the call for a fifth straight start. D’Amato came into the meeting with a 23 percent win rate on the season in grass races.

 

“I just happen to have a lot of good turf horses in my barn and they’ve been running well,” D’Amato said.

 

Major competition for Midnight Storm figures to come from Finnegans Wake. The Peter Miller-trained 6-year-old son of Powerscourt is returning to turf, where he has earnings of over $1.4 million, after running second to Hard Aces in the Gold Cup at Santa Anita on June 27.

 

The field for the Read, from the rail out: Twentytwentyvision (Flavien Prat, 6-1), Gabriel Charles (Mike Smith, 5-1), Midnight Storm (Tyler Baze, 8-5), Power Ped (Gary Stevens, 8-1), Big Cazanova (James Graham, 12-1), Maltes (Martin Garcia, 15-1), and Finnegans Wake (Peter Miller, 2-1).

 

Source - Del Mar