Weekend Winners Club

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Wednesday, September 16, 2020.  Kentucky Downs will close tonight after a brief but exciting meet which as usual featured the largest average daily purse size of any racing meet in North America.  If it seems like their meet just began, it did open just 10 days ago, and just like that it’s over.

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In addition they also canceled at least one full racing day due to weather, and several stakes races slated for today were also canned.  Churchill Downs is ready to pick up some of the slack on Thursday but won’t put up another stakes race for 10 more days.   

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Today’s card looks good with almost 100 horses competing in 10 races after morning scratches.  The featured race is the Grade 3 Franklin Simpson Stakes where 12 3yo’s are competing at 6.5f on turf of course for half a million in purse money.  See the Grid here to follow along.

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On first glance the field looks competitive and wide open, but there’s not much in the way of frontrunners so focus on speed.  Turned Aside is a legit ML favorite and the 2^nd fastest early runner, coming off a G3 win.

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Maven is the fastest on average with high EP and his ML of 5-1 is likely to go down and he could end up the favorite.  A close 3^rd in speed and EP belongs to Johnny Unleashed at 12-1 ML, who has the best last race PF which was also a win.  If Competitive Saint draws in he could be dangerous at 8-1.

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If the pace does heat up early on the front end, the best late runners could pick up the pieces.  Embolden at 10-1 is cutting back from 3 races at a mile and was 2^nd in a stakes last time at this distance.  Another Miracle at 15-1 could also make noise, and Guildsman at 20-1 is 2^nd in LP.

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There are several nice allowance races with names you can recognize, and also a couple MSW’s for 2yo’s with names you may be hearing more of in the future. Good luck today.

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As always, you can get the Grid for all the major tracks and race days here. See which option looks best for you.

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