SELDOM do all the pieces of the handicapping puzzle fall into place as well as they do for Wild Imagination in today’s eighth race at Aqueduct.
Post position. Pace. Speed figures. Class. Current form. A fondness for the track and distance. Price. The 5-year-old Wild Again gelding, trained by P.J. Kelly, has it all going for him in the allowance feature at a mile and 70 yards.
In his last start here Dec. 18, coming off an 11-week layoff, Wild Imagination rallied wide on the far turn under veteran Pat Johnson, took the lead in deep stretch but couldn’t hold on, losing to Galloping Gael by three-quarters of a length.
“The horse that beat him turned out to be pretty decent. He won his next start,” said Johnson, who rides Wild Imagination again today. “I thought this horse would go on when he went to the lead because he won here by 14 lengths (over the inner dirt track last February), but he got a little bit late.”
Wild Imagination breaks from the rail, which Johnson said “is always an advantage at Aqueduct.” With frontrunners Yodelman, Mellow Roll, Outamyway Sir and T.V. Medley in the fray, there’s plenty of speed to set up his late run.
A “horse of the course,” Wild Imagination has two wins, two seconds and a third from six starts over the IDT and he’s never been off the board in five starts at the distance. The 100 Beyer Speed Figure Wild Imagination earned Dec. 18 is the best last-out number in the field and he has a touch of class, having knocked heads in the past with such stakes-class runners as Ordway, Gray Raider, Sahm and Indy Vidual.
Best of all, Wild Imagination is a healthy 6-1 on the morning line.
“I think he’s really a contender (today),” Johnson said. “He got something out of his last race and looks good in there.”
Play Wild Imagination to win and box him in exactas with Mellow Roll and Outamyway Sir. *Silver Charm is “better now than he ever has been in his life,” trainer Bob Baffert said yesterday as the 1997 Kentucky Derby-Preakness winner prepares for the Jan. 30 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park. “If you look at him physically he’s really grown and filled out. At 5 years old, that’s when a horse really blooms. [And] he does so much better in the winter because the heat in the summer takes a toll on him.”
The Donn, the first of 11 races that make up the “NTRA Champions on Fox” series for older horses, will likely draw a field of seven or eight, including Sir Bear, Behrens and Frisk Me Now. The Grade 1 race will be televised live from 4 to 5 p.m. as part of Fox’s pre-Super Bowl Saturday coverage. Silver Charm is scheduled to fly into Miami on Tuesday and will receive a police motorcycle escort from the airport to the track.
Silver Charm showed a new dimension by coming from well off the pace to win his last start, the San Pasqual Handicap at Santa Anita, and heads to Florida as the favorite for 1999 Horse of the Year. In March, the charismatic gray son of Silver Buck is scheduled to defend his title in the Dubai World Cup, which recently had its purse boosted to $5 million, making it the richest race in the world.
“One of the things this industry needs badly is stars,” owner Bob Lewis said, explaining his decision to campaign Silver Charm at 5. “The only way to accomplish that is to keep them on the racetrack. If [Bob Baffert] can keep the horse healthy and sound, we want to keep him there for a long time.
“How often do you come across a Silver Charm? We just hope there are a lot of racing fans who are sharing the thrill with us.” *Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby, announced yesterday it has signed an agreement to acquire Calder Race Course in Miami for $86 million. The sale follows recent rumors that Churchill was attempting to purchase Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita.
“The acquisition of Calder represents an attractive investment opportunity,” said Churchill president and CEO Tom Meeker. “Calder is a well-managed operation, and its racing season [May to January] favorably complements that of Churchill Downs and our other existing racing operations [including Ellis Park in Kentucky and Hoosier Park in Indiana].”