Fonner Park finished up its meet last weekend and Nebraska horsemen packed up their tack and moved to Omaha for their annual three-day pilgrimage to Horsemen’s Park. The 3-day racing event is a popular stop before racing shifts to Agriculture Park in Columbus for the summer.
The opening night stake, the one-mile $30,000 Falls Amiss Handicap was won by the 2nd choice, Sweetedge, under Ken Shino. After battling with heavily favored Spice Swirl through 3/4 of a mile, Sweetedge left the short field of Nebraska breds behind, opening up to win by 3 3/4 lengths in 1:43.40. He returned a nice $11.60 for the win to his backers.
Saturday features a pair of $30,000 six furlong stakes for 3-year old Nebraska breds. The Fantango Lady for fillies and mares and the Skunktail for colts and geldings.
The Fantango Lady features five runners all out of the $25,000 Fonner Special won by the top choice here, Mabloom. Mabloom simply toyed with the Fonner Special field in the mud, tracking the early pace and dominating in the lane to win by 3 1/2. While Chub’s Charmer and Who’s Catty both had some issues negotiating the first turn in the Fonner, there is no reason to think that the very consistent Mabloom won’t dominate this field again.
In the Skunktail, all but Tranarchy are still maidens and he only broke his maiden in his last, the boy’s division of the Fonner Special, over most of these. The morning line favorite at 2-1, Tranarchy woke up in the Special in the mud and led from gate to wire at a whopping 13-1.
The question for bettors will be if that performance was a function of the weather and the off track or did Tranarchy just figure things out?
Beer Sherriff, a colt that has flashed some potential, seems to find a way to get into trouble out of the starting gate. He could be dangerous if he can pull it together out of the gate and get in the mix early.
Morning Shadow has been consistent sort but has not been able to get on top in his last two, hanging on for second.
While it may be tough to beat the favorite in the Skunktail, a minor step forward by the two main challengers could put them in the winners’ circle.
