By Ryan Dickey:

For every live race day of the Keeneland Spring meet, I will be analyzing the finale for each card. We’ll call it the “Bail-Out Special” — in case you had a bad day at the track and you need JUST ONE WINNER to right the ship. We are going to try our best to give you that advice and counsel and hope that we all can get some “dinner money” for the night.

But the selection can be used for more than just stemming losses from a bad day. Maybe you’d like to get aggressive and single a horse in multi-race bets. Maybe you’ve had a GREAT day at the track and you want to “let it ride.”

No matter how you use it, it’s my goal to pick THE WINNING HORSE in the finale — I won’t be too concerned about the morning line odds. I’ll actually be handicapping the race before the odds are announced. So my selection may not be the “value play” in the finale — just my opinion on who I think will be, can be, may be the WINNER. At the least, we are “all in” together.

Friday, April 5

Race 10 N1x Allowance race ($81,000 purse) 4 years old and up 6 furlongs on the main track approx 6:03 pm ET

Hopefully my first installment of the “Bail-out Special” on Keeneland’s opening day Thursday did relatively well (pushed the pace hard until the final 100 yards, before faltering late) because this tenth race on Friday is pretty tough. An allowance company sprint with some decent horses in differing stages of form and class. This is what makes races at Keeneland exciting.

I’m going to separate the twelve runners in the main body of the race (and one also eligible) into three categories. The first category is the horses we can safely “toss” from contention–the ones that if they hit the board will ruin our trifecta in the finale.

The horses we will skip over are the #2 Uber Kirk, #5 Strike Revenge, #8 Dahog, #9 British Humor, #10 Animo, #11 Testy Kitten and the AE #13 Dreamzapper.

A few of the horses entered have a “fighter’s chance” to win the race, but are best used underneath in exotics.

Those horses are #1 Chaps, #4 Private Eye and #6 Coastbuster.

This brings us to the real win contenders, and truly, any one of these three have legitimate reasons to be the favorite, although I believe the morning line as well as post-time favorite will be #3 Fuel the Bern.

Running for trainer Danny Gargan and owner Daniel Feiss, Fuel the Bern was last seen finishing third in allowance company on January 26 at Aqueduct. The 5/2 favorite in the $70,000 purse 6-½ furlong sprint, the son of Bernadini flattened out late after getting to within three lengths of the lead at the top of the stretch and didn’t have enough. That ended his two race winning streak–both sprints at Aqueduct.

To me, the most important factor in selecting a horse other than Fuel the Bern is not only his falling short last out, but the fact that he was a vet scratch on March 10 at the Big A, and hasn’t raced in 69 days. Luis Saez gets the nod on Fuel the Bern.

The other horse I see as a win contender who has a few obstacles is #12 Fast Talking. Racing for trainer Shug McGaughey and under Jose Ortiz, Fast Talking broke his maiden last time out. While he has the speed to be a contender in this race, he has to overcome both a bad post and making his first start against winners.

While I believe he will have the early speed to shoot past the first five runners to his left, he will not have a very clear path towards the rail, and must expend a lot of energy to get into position. That task and running against allowance company for the first time may be asking too much.

My choice for “Bail-out Special” on Friday at Keeneland is #7 TIME ON TARGET. While this Bill Mott trained son of Distorted Humor loses jockey Luis Saez who rode him to victory last out in a $50k optional claimer sprint at Gulfstream last month, he picks up a familiar pilot in Julien Leparoux.

Of the three top contenders, Time On Target has the fewest obstacles. He’s in form, and wasn’t a vet scratch last month. He didn’t seem to tire last race (he drew clear late), and his post isn’t at the end of the gate. He’s not as speedy as Fuel the Bern or Fast Talking will be in this race, but he should rate just behind the front runners.

Play #7 Time On Target to bail you out from a bad day. Or use him as a single to end multi-race tickets. He’s my choice to win the finale at Keeneland on Friday. A suggested trifecta key for $2 would be 7 over 3,12 over 1,3,4,6,12 which would cost $16.00. Best of luck!