Survival at the Shore (6/4)

Monmouth Park has selected races 4, 6, and 7 for today's Survival at the Shore contest wagers. 

I've barely survived the last two days, picking up almost-worthless show horses to keep my dim hopes alive.  We'll see how today fares.

I'll give Monmouth Park this, they are picking some really tough races for this contest.  Today's first leg is the fourth race, a state-bred $12.5K maiden claimer....yikes.

Leg 1, Race 4

4-Mo's Cutter (5/1) didn't have the easiest of tasks in his career debut.  He drew inside all of the speed in a full field of 12 and had about half the field just to his outside after the first quarter mile.  As they made there way to the turn he appeared to take up just slightly and pretty much threw in the towel at that point.  That was against $50K maiden claimers, so he's going to get a big price cut today.  This field appears to have a lot less early speed than his last one and he could end up showing a lot more.  I'll take him at 5/1 ML odds.

Leg 2, Race 6

8-Ira's Song (5/1) ran a good race in that last effort over the Tampa Bay turf course and did well to finish in the top three.  The pace was pretty slow (1:13+ for six), which didn't help his chances at running down the winner in the lane.  The place horse from that race came back to win at next asking at the same level at Tampa (50K MdClm).  If Ira's Song were to duplicate both of those races from Tampa at Monmouth he should be right with the leaders at the end.

Leg 3, Race 7

A pretty competitive final leg to the sequence, and one in which I'm going to try and bring home a price play.  2-Debonair Darling (10/1) has been off for almost a year, so it's going to be a tough ask to beat this bunch the first time off the bench.  She's run well at the track and the distance in her young career, should be well positioned early and Marquez climbs into the saddle - all things that make her an attractive long shot possibility.  She probably won't have enough to get it done today, but I'm still going to take a shot.