Catalyst Race Overview

Catalyst will make her fourth career start this afternoon in the 7th race at Oaklawn Park. The maiden special weight restricted to 3-year-old fillies will be contested over 1 1/16 miles on the dirt. 

Our daughter of Gun Runner made significant improvement in start number two, but regressed most recently over a muddy track. Trainer Steve Asmussen always felt she was going to get better with time and given he continues to give her a shot at Oaklawn, shows he still has faith in her. She has been training with plenty of enthusiasm of late, see the video above of her galloping earlier this week.

Catalyst draws post #2 in a full field of 10 and will be ridden by Christian Torres. There appears to be spread from the far inside and outside which should put Catalyst sitting a mid-pack trip. #6 Flashy Dancer looks to be the horse to beat coming off a troubled trip when facing Catalyst most recently. Race 7 has a post time of 3:20 pm CT and at this time there are no scratches. 

Good luck to all owners!

Main Threats:

#1 Gourmet (4/1): Catalyst’s stablemate. Took a nice step forward when stretching out around two turns in career start number two. The winner of that race returned to finish an even fourth in a first-level allowance at Keeneland. Breaking from the rail, expect this one to be on the engine early with blinkers added.

#3 Looking for Ginny (12/1): Also exits the same race as #1 Gourmet. This one takes a bit more creativity to get to, but it’s more a hunch play on trainer Kenny McPeek. It wouldn’t be surprising if this one took a few starts to get cranked especially if she showed she was strictly a two-turn horse early on, which is why he debuted her going long. Expecting to see a career-best effort today

#5 Miss Rockette (8/5): $1.25-million dollar yearling purchase at Keeneland travels for her debut for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert. Have to respect the connections and Baffert wouldn’t be making a move like this unless he was confident, but it still isn’t an easy task to ship and debut around two turns on debut. There are some vulnerabilities.

#6 Flashy Dancer (9/5): The horse to beat. Exits a live race where the third-place finisher returned to win a MSW at Oaklawn and is cross-entered in a listed stake later in today’s card at Oaklawn and a first-level allowance option next Friday at Oaklawn.