by Mike Paradise, publicity director, Maywood Park
Melrose Park, IL — Robert Ranquist, Jr.’s Wrist Rocket is the 2-1 morning line favorite to get back on the winning track when Maywood Park hosts its first Illinois bred Open Pace of the Fall meeting on Friday night.
Trained and driven by Mike Oosting, the eight-year-old gelding will attempt to halt a current six-race losing streak on the oval where he was a Free For All winner back in April in 1:534 on a “sloppy” racing surface for his Palos Park, Illinois owner.
Wrist Rocket gained his last victory in a Hawthorne $75,000 claiming event (1:52) on July 31. He posted a 1:53 win two weeks earlier. The gelding’s lifetime mark of 1:494 came at Balmoral Park this past April.
Wrist Rocket will face some tough opposition when he leaves from the four post in the $16,500 tenth race feature. Starting inside of him is Caps Classic (5-2, Tony Morgan), My Buddy Bob (4-1, Ron Marsh) and Cold Sweat (8-1, Dale Hiteman). To his right is the lone mare in the race Cha Cha Ching (10-1, Eric Ledford), along with Honest Lawyer (8-1, Ryan Anderson) and Hot Rob (12-1, Del Chupp).
Honest Lawyer and My Buddy Bob were the third and fourth place finishers, respectively, in last Saturday’s $125,000 Dan Patch Championship on Super Night at Balmoral Park.
The latter sped to a lifetime best 1:503 clocking in his September 9 stake elim for the Homer Hochstetler Stable, who plucked him out of a $20,000 claimer in mid-July for Open Outcry Harness and No Cry Harness of Wooddale, Illinois.
“My Buddy Bob showed a lot of high-speed quarters in his races and that’s what attracted him to me,” said his trainer Homer Hochstetler. “The other good thing about the horse is that he’s very clean-legged and very sound.”
Honest Lawyer was beaten by only a half-length by Taser Gun in the Dan Patch Final. Now a four-year-old, the Cole Muffler offspring captured the $300,000 Orange and Blue Colt Pace as a freshman on Super Night 2002. His current season mark of 1:533 came at Maywood in May.
Caps Classic again showed his fondness for smaller ovals with a 1:521 triumph here a week ago in a $35,000 claiming event. Owned by Mary Engle and the Rucker Stable, the seven-year-old gelding has four of his five season’s wins on a half-miler, two at Maywood Park and a pair at Freehold. Last year eight of his nine victories came on “double lapped” tracks.
This will be Cha Cha Ching’s second start in a month against “the boys.” The Vincent Fusco, Jr. trainee used a September 4 Hawthorne Free For All as a prep for her Ann Vonian stake elimination five nights later. The four-year-old mare sped to a 1:50 career best mile at The Big M earlier in the summer.