God's Tipster's Thursday Keeneland Pick: In the 9th, a turf sprint for 2yos, a Steve Asmussen runner debuts

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Wednesday’s Race Recap from Keeneland:

(All odds US)

Keeneland:

Race 1: SCRATCH

Race 5: 6th@ 5.58/1

Race 8: 8th@ 21.74/1

Well, it’s always tough when a morning line 7/2 BEST BET scratches but that’s how our week began with Race 1 on Wednesday. Optimistically I’ll say it’s for the best, but I was looking forward to that one. In Race 5, Justifreak broke slowly and raced down towards the inside early, ran into a wall of horses on the far turn and ended up sixth. In Race 8, We Miss Arlington lunged at the start and raced with the early pace, went 6 wide on the turn and faded on debut.

Let’s take a look at a few of Thursday‘s races from Keeneland where we are expecting fast and firm conditions beneath cloudy skies:

Keeneland:

Race 9: Copperdrop - 1 pt win (US Morning Line Odds: 8/1)

Two-year-old fillies sprint five and a half furlongs on turf and we’ve got a full field of 12 runners with 3 of those making their career debut this afternoon. With the experienced runners lacking any real sizzle in their first few starts I’m siding with a debut runner from the Steve Asmussen barn – Copperdrop. First off, I’ll say that Steve Asmussen isn’t known for winning with debut turf sprinters. But this miss is bred to be something special. By new sire Copper Bullet who’s hit the board with 2 of his first 3 turf sprinters as a sire, this filly is a half to Echo Again, Pneumatic and Costa Terra, who each won their career debut for these same connections. Two of those three runners competed in Grade 1 races and another competed in Grade 2’s and Grade 3’s. So, the breeding appears to be there, and these connections know how to win here. I love the work pattern with a five-furlong conditioning drill followed by a three-furlong blowout most recently. I look for this filly to show high speed early and to hold them all off late.