By Joe Quillen
Presque Isle Downs Race 7 – Tom Ridge Stakes
Today we head somewhere new as we had to Presque Isle Downs in Erie, Pennsylvania as we have the Tom Ridge Stakes, which is named for the former governor of Pennsylvania and former Director of Homeland Security. This race is for three-year-olds going six furlongs on the synthetic track here. Post time is set for 5:42 pm Eastern time.
There is a full field of 12 horses that was entered in today’s race, but we will have at least one scratch as the 8 Roi Soleil ran yesterday at Woodbine in Toronto.
Favored in this race is the 11 Mr Skylight (5/2 morning line) who comes into the race after finishing third in the Chick Lang Stakes at Pimlico on the Preakness undercard. He started poorly in this race but made a big move here on a track that was favoring speed all weekend. But this will be the first time that he has been on a synthetic surface.
The 2 Buccherino (3/1 ML) is in the same boat running on synthetic for the first time. He finished third last time out at Aqueduct in the Gold Fever after winning an allowance after a four-month layoff at Parx. His best races have been on the front end and I expect him to do that again today.
The 10 Apollo Ten (9/2 ML) won off of a layoff two months ago at Gulfstream on the turf. He won on the lead that day in a fast time but has also won from off the pace like he did at Aqueduct last September. He might take to the synthetic here today after his races on the turf.
The 1 Ponce de Leon was off the pace along the rail until the top the stretch and drew clear to break his maiden impressively on his first try on the synthetic at Woodbine. He followed up that effort with a bullet on June 3 as well. He shouldn’t be too far off the pace and should be replicating his performance north of the border a few weeks ago.
Some will argue that the 1 will be a good candidate to bounce today, but I think he found his preferred surface. I’ll take Ponce de Leon to win here and call this race 1-11-2-10 with a $20 win wager on the 1. Good luck everyone!
Check out my show “Also Eligible” on Saturday mornings at 10 am Eastern/7 am Pacific as AJ Johnson and I discuss the big races, the latest news in horse racing and much more!