Firing Line Stands Out in Sunland Derby

Having thrown down on two straight occasions with ‘TDN Rising Star’ Dortmund (Big Brown), Arnold Zetcher’s Firing Line (Line of David) gets out of the considerable shadow of that towering foe and looms a prohibitive favorite in Sunday’s GIII Sunland Derby. 

An impressive maiden winner at the tail end of the Bing Crosby meet at Del Mar Nov. 30, the $240,000 Keeneland April graduate engaged in a race-long speed duel with Mr. Z (Malibu Moon) in the GI Los Alamitos Futurity Dec. 20 and ultimately won that battle, but could not win the war, as Dortmund was able to stick his head across the wire first. Firing Line got first run on Dortmund in the GIII Robert B. Lewis S. Feb. 7 and looked set to give Gary Stevens his landmark 5,000th career victory in North America, but the Baffert trainee was somehow able to punch back from the rail and dealt the Simon Callaghan trainee a second consecutvie excruciating defeat. With news Thursday that the Bob Baffert-trained Lord Nelson (Pulpit) will not ship in for the race, the task facing Firing Line appears that much more straight-forward. 

With plenty of other early speed signed on in the form of coast-to-coast Turf Paradise Derby hero Why Two (Bob and John), stretchout sprinter Malibu Mogul (Malibu Moon) and potentially Tiznow R J (Tiznow), the race could set up forWhere’s the Moon (Malibu Moon) to cash a nice check. Well-beaten in three Southern California starts for Peter Miller last season, the chestnut–produced by a half-sister to the dam of GIII Withers S. winner Far From Over (Blame)–has been much improved against far softer in these local environs. He broke his maiden by an impressive 6 3/4 lengths going a mile over this strip Feb. 13 and returned on eight days’ rest to defeat 1-5 Cinco Charlie (Indian Charlie) and Dirt Monster (Line of David) in the Mine That Bird Derby last time out.