Catching My Eye at Colonial Downs Week 8

We’ve reached our final week of the season here at Colonial Downs, and we're coming off a very fun Saturday of stakes that saw the Virginia-restricted runners competing for some big purses. This week will be a doozy: four days of action, with 11 or 12 races in each. But let’s first look back at some horses who caught my eye in Week 8. 

We’ve reached our final week of the season here at Colonial Downs, and we're coming off a very fun Saturday of stakes that saw the Virginia-restricted runners competing for some big purses. This week will be a doozy: four days of action, with 11 or 12 races in each. But let’s first look back at some horses who caught my eye in Week 8. 

Amalfi Drive

Amalfi Drive is now 2-for-2 to start her career and her score Saturday was pretty easy. It was a winner’s race for two-year-olds, and she looked loaded while in behind horses the entire trip. Once Ben Curtis got daylight, she erupted, drawing off to win by more than four lengths, stopping the six-furlong clock in 1:09.55. Mike Stidham has run many a good horse here at Colonial over the years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he jumps this one up to a stakes next time.  

Gastown Babe

Gastown Babe was fourth in a $150,000 stakes this weekend at a big price, beaten all of three-quarters of a length for first. She had a bit of a wide trip and just wasn’t able to keep with some very nice fillies and mares. I don’t think she’s an open stakes horse, but as an allowance runner or restricted stakes horse, she could very well make some noise. Sometimes horses who finish fourth or fifth by only a small margin will get a touch overlooked next time out because many players will just take note of the place of finish, but Gastown Babe was actually close to winning the race despite a wide trip.  

Waittilmidnitehour 

Waittilmidnitehour ran second Friday night, just nosing out her stablemate for the place spot. She hopped at the start and was still last at the top of the stretch. After kicking way to the outside in the last furlong or so, the filly was gobbling up ground on a pristine-trip winner. She had won here early in the meet, and one bummer about the length of the meet is that horses often only get a couple of cracks at running here and for this purse money. I would guess we’ll see Waittilmidnitehour pops up next at Laurel Park as these connections do run there a bit. Colonial horses over the years tend to go on pretty well to Maryland, Kentucky, and elsewhere. 

It's worth noting another interesting thing we saw this past week was more Laurel Park shippers than normal. With Timonium running and no turf race in Maryland, we should see a lot of those Laurel-based runners down here this coming week. Trainer Patrick Nuesch had two runners come over from Laurel and win quite easily in week 8 and might be someone to watch this week as he has another of these types running on Friday’s card in race 2 named Legend’s Thunder.