Saturday's 2nd at Hollywood

[Calzone Lord]

All 8 horses in the field are 1st time starters.

It's pretty uncommon to see a field of nothing but debuters on a Saturday card, at a major circuit, in freaking December.

But so it goes with the trend of fewer starts and waiting longer to debut horses.

Interestingly, the morning line favorite is a Mike Puype horse who I would have expected to go off at least 10/1 on the basis of what I see on paper ... not to mention that the horse appeared to be nothing special in her under-tack work.

There is another Puype who is 20/1 on the ML ... and that one is a daughter of Dehere.

[MISTERGEE]

black witch a 400k purchase from a 10 k stud looks like will get the $ ?

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by MISTERGEE

black witch a 400k purchase from a 10 k stud looks like will get the $ ?

Logically, yes.

I just don't get the morning line at all.

Not only does the ML favorite look 10/1 on paper ... but the joint second choices are from the barn of Ron Ellis (very rarely wins with debuters) and Mike Ewing (not exactly a high profile barn)

I haven't looked at any workout reports ... but the morning line is just plain weird.

There is a daughter of Olympic Charmer in there -- she was fast as hell -- but considering the sire is Duke of Marmalade and the trainer is Ron McAnally... I don't expect it to take money at all.

[Linny]

Duke of Marmalade has offspring?

[Calzone Lord]

Yes.

[Rudeboyelvis]

No worries. Baffert will be 3-5 and win by 10 lengths. Too bad he doesn't have an uncoupled entry that missed a length first out with an 81 beyer so Mike Smith can get the mount and stiff him to get the price horse home.

[Perrault Robbed]

I believe Puype has had 2 first timers win this meet at BHP, which is a lot for him. He had Smith on one a couple of weeks ago that looked like a winner at like 15-1 but hung the last 100 yards. It is interesting that Smith is aboard on the Dehere 20-1 and Gryder is on the ML 3-1. How is Dehere doing this year as a sire and broodmare sire of firsters? He is getting up there in years, and it seems out on the west coast at least that every first time starter he is associated with is 20-1 ML. He had one last Sunday in the Maiden Claimer finale at BHP out of a poor first timer barn that completed the super at like 20-1.