Six of the 10 2-year-olds entered in the $100,000 Generous Stakes (gr. IIIT) at Hollywood Park on Nov. 23 are coming into the one-mile turf event off victories. But the winner could very well be a colt whose record shows the worst effort of the group last time out — Todd Pletcher trainee The Leopard, whose seventh-place finish in the Oct. 26 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf came over a soggy grass course that left many floundering.
Throw out the Juvenile Turf performance (or lack thereof), and the Storm Cat colt comes into the Generous as a top contender. A $2.5 million Fasig-Tipton 2-year-old purchase, he scored his first victory over the dirt at Saratoga this summer before a fifth-place finish behind Tale of Ekati in the Belmont Futurity (gr. II) had Pletcher pointing him to the grass. He then showed an impressive turn of foot in his first attempt on turf when he won the Pilgrim Stakes, an ungraded event run at 1 1/16-miles run at Belmont Park.
As for victorious challengers The Leopard will face, the only stakes winner of the bunch is the Jeff Mullins-trained Yes It’s a Cat. By Tactical Cat, the gray/roan colt scored a hard-earned victory by a neck in the Oct. 26 Pinjara Stakes at Santa Anita in his first attempt over the turf. But Dan Hendricks may have an ace up his sleeve with the Indian Charlie colt Indian Sun, winner of a Nov. 4 maiden special weight over the Santa Anita turf course. The colt’s only other start was a second-place maiden special weight finish in which he lost by just three-quarters of a length.
Two European horses will be making their first starts in North America in the Generous. Roger Charlton saddles Meer Kat, a Red Ransom colt who comes off an Oct. 14 maiden victory at Bath, while E.J. O’Neill sends out Spinning Sound from a July 25 maiden win at Lingfield.
Robscarvic, Gone Grand, D. Double You, Coastal Eddy, and Make Them Break complete the field.
$100,000 Generous Stakes (gr. IIIT), Hollywood Park, race 5, approximate post 2:30 p.m. PST, one mile for 2-year-olds, turf
PP, Horse, Weight, Jockey
1. Robscarvic, 117, Brice Blanc
2. Gone Grand, 117, David Flores
3. Indian Sun, 117, Alex Solis
4. D. Double You, 115, Patrick Valenzuela
5. Yes It's a Cat, 117, Martin Pedroza
6. Spinning Sound, 117, Rafael Bejarano
7. Coastal Eddy, 115, Jose Valdivia, Jr.
8. Make Them Break, 117, Corey Nakatani
9. The Leopard, 117, Garrett Gomez
10. Meer Kat, 117, Victor Espinoza
