World Racing / Simon Rowlands / 23 September 2011 /

Timeform's Simon Rowlands shares his thoughts on the major action in America this Saturday...

One of the appealing features of racing in North America is the way in which lesser tracks get their day, or their days, in the sun.

Turfway Park, near Cincinnati, is hardly a gaff establishment, but it is not in the premier league of tracks either. Yet it gets to take centre stage this Saturday when hosting the WinStar-sponsored "Kentucky Day of Champions".

The meeting was designed as a preparation for the Breeders' Cup itself, now just six weeks away, and the main event threw up the subsequent Dirt Mile winner in Furthest Land when last run, in 2009.

That main event is the Kentucky Cup Stakes, a $200,000 Grade 2 reduced in distance from nine furlongs to eight and a half this time round and due off at 23:05 British Summer Time.

It seems unlikely that the race will, this time, identify a horse that goes on to win at Churchill Downs in November, but it makes up for what it lacks slightly in quality with a good measure of competitiveness.

None of the eight declared runners can easily be ruled out, and it may well come down to which horse and jockey combination gets things right on the day.

This includes coping with the track surface, which is Polytrack. Ironically, given its name, Turfway Park has no turf course.

This may count against Demarcation - arguably as good as anything on bare form - whose win on synthetics came back in 2007 and against much lesser opposition. It may also count against Baryshnikov, a course winner who has since surpassed that form on turf.

One about whom there is little doubt concerning effectiveness on Polytrack is Strike Impact, a multiple winner on the all-weather who is better than ever now at the age of seven, with a Timeform rating of 113.

Strike Impact was in good form at Churchill Downs over the summer and could well have been prepped with this race specifically in mind, having recorded a number of "bullet" (that is, fastest of the day) workouts recently.

Turfway Park has a run-in of only about one and a half furlongs, so handiness is likely to be an advantage. Strike Impact has a Timeform EPF (early position figure) second only to Future Prospect in this field, and he also has a master tactician in Calvin Borel in the plate. He looks the one to beat.

The supporting card at Turfway Park is far from shabby, as well.

The Timeform top-rated in the Tiznow Kentucky Cup Juvenile Fillies Stakes (20:45 BST) is the Grade 3 winner Flashy Lassie, while Hansen (a runaway winner here on his only start) has that honour in the Bluegrass Cat Kentucky Cup Juvenile Stakes 35 minutes later.

Cal Nation would take a lot of stopping in the Grade 3 Speightstown Kentucky Cup Sprint Stakes (21:55 BST) at his best, though this is his first run away from dirt. Upperline, who is equally effective on synthetics and turf, looks the one for the Grade 3 Distorted Humor Kentucky Cup Distaff Stakes (22:30 BST). She was last seen running a good fifth to Stacelita at a much higher level.

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