Earlier this week, I came up with my top three picks for this Saturday's Los Alamitos Futurity as part of my weekly coverage of horse racing for ScoresandStats.com. At the time, Horse Racing Nation had listed seven entries as probable.
My top choice was Pinehurst followed by Enbarr and Rhetoric. All three of these two-year old colts are trained by Bob Baffert. His horses have dominated this race, with a first place finish the past seven years in a row.
When the actual post positions were announced for the 2021 Los Alamitos Futurity, there were only five total entries in the field with none of these horses on the final list. That is rare but it does happen from time to time.
Forced to reformulate my top three colts to finish in the money, here are my new picks for this race:
Win: Olympic Legend
Place: Messier
Show: Durante
Olympic Legend is trained by Luis Mendez. The two-year old Kentucky-bred colt will break from the No. 1 post with jockey Jose Valdivia Jr. getting the ride. The son of Street Boss place third in this year's ungraded Capote Stakes at Los Alamitos on Sept. 18.
Messier is one of two colts in the limited field trained by Baffert. Trainer Doug O'Neil has a pair of entries as well, including Durante.
Both colts are coming off recent victories. Messier won the Grade 3 Bob Hope Stakes at Del Mar on Nov. 14. He covered the seven furlongs on dirt in 1:22.74 past Forbidden Kingdom and Winning Map. Durante won a one mile Maiden Special Weight race at Del Mar that same day.
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