This week's Maiden Claiming Monday takes us to Columbus, Ohio, and the final race on the card at Beulah Park - a $5,000 Maiden Claimer with a full field of twelve

Last week's race was the 5th at Philly Park where I went three deep and came up with a whole lotta nothing in the end.  Below is a link to an Excel file I have set up to track each Maiden Claiming Monday selections and results.  Hopefully I can enter some winners once and a while.

Maiden Claiming Monday Tracker

Beulah Park
Race 9
Six Furlongs
$4,000 Maiden Claimer
Three Years Old And Up

PP	Horse	Jockey	Trainer	ML
1	Undefeated	Diaz R	Rodriguez Angel M	3/1
2	Trops Jr.	Yaranga Y	Eilers Larry	8/1
3	B L's Sand Shark	Luna R	Kisielewski George T	20/1
4	Bright Prince	Camaque C	Gothard Akiko	15/1
5	Cobra Run	Deonauth KP	Cain Crystal	20/1
6	Salmond	Collazo J E Jr.	York Mike	5/1
7	All That Money	De Leon A	Burton Tim	10/1
8	Blue Frady Cat	Velez JJ	Asbury David W	6/1
9	Down the Hatch	Lagunes G	Luna Artemio	4/1
10	Platelets	Garcia Carlos	Sipp Burton K	12/1
11	Jazzy Jake	Rechy R	Crumley Jevon	SCR
12	B. O. Plenty	Ramos R	Lang Danny D	20/1

 

Talk about a tough maiden claiming event...this is truly one of those head scratchers.  The most difficult task when I first looked at the PPs for this race was trying to determine the early speed - there just isn't a lot of horses in this race that like to do anything out of the gate.  In the end, I whittled things down to five that I think have a good chance at the win.

1 - Undefeated: The rail horse is shipping in from Calder and dropping out of $12.5 maidens...that a pretty big class edge when you look at the group of horses that he's drawn against.  He's shown an ability to sit near the pace on a few occasions which could be a big benefit in a race that looks to be light on speed.  Trainer Angel Rodriguez has a solid hit rate with first time trainees and coming off the layoff.  He looks like the pick.

2 - Trops Jr.: Ran a pretty good race last time out at this level and distance, missing second place money by a neck.  His last four tries sprinting at Beulah have seen him stay reasonably close to the pace before faltering in the stretch. With the complete lack of speed in this race I think you have to give a chance to any horse that has shown an ability to at least stalk the pace because they could end up with an easy lead.  

6 - Salmond: He bombed last time out over a sloppy track at Laurel but prior to that he set the pace in a one mile 7k event.  I decided to throw him into the mix because a) he's at least shown an ability to lead a race, and b) he's lightly raced which means he hasn't proved to be as completely hopeless as some of the other entries.

9 - Down the Hatch: That last effort in a 10k maiden at Hawthorne looks pretty bad but he had held his own in his two previous efforts at lower levels which makes me think he could bounce back nicely against this group.  Unlike a lot of these horses, Down the Hatch doesn't have the problem of always breaking many lengths behind the leaders.  Given his outside post, if he can break well and stalk the front he should have an excellent chance at the win.

12 - B.O. Plenty: Can't believe I'd even consider playing an 0-for-21 horse in a race like this but this gelding's race two back at the distance and the track was a pretty good effort.  In fact, his last two sprinting efforts at Beulah have certainly been on par with what most of these other contenders have been doing, if not more.  Plus, in a race like this it probably doesn't hurt to cover to a 20/1 horse.

Selections

So five deep I go looking to find a winner and maybe a little bit of a price.

1, 2, 6, 9. and 12