The Thanksgiving holiday week gets off to a fast start Monday with the $300,000 Steel Valley Sprint at Mahoning Valley and the 7-stakes New Mexico Classic Day card at Zia Park. Add in a Del Mar makeup day from last Friday’s weather cancellation and it already feels like the holiday is here. Horseplayers at 1/ST BET and Xpressbet get 10X 1/ST Rewards Points today on all plays at Zia Park.

Mahoning Valley: Race 10 (4:18 pm ET) | $300,000 Steel Valley Sprint

#11 Guns Loaded will be a deserving favorite off a smashing return win at Churchill in September. The Jose D’Angelo trainee was set back by a 2-turn bid in the Holy Bull that was reasonable to try given his pedigree, but his running lines have always suggested he’s best sprinting. There’s a solid pace here for his patient style to pounce. Look for #2 Hymn (10-1 morning line) to perhaps improve with a rider change to Evin Roman. Not that he’s better than Luis Saez, just that Hymn has made a few premature moves under Saez and any change of tactics might get this one back to his highly promising Oaklawn unveiling. Exacta play 11-2.

Zia Park: Race 8 (5:14 pm ET) | $150,000 New Mexico Classic Juvenile

No doubt the Albuquerque duo of #9 Speed Merchant and #2 Bully Boy will garner the attention in the third installment of their budding rivalry. But neither is guaranteed to handle the Zia Park surface the same. We know #4 Fort Sumner (10-1 morning line) did so nicely in his debut. He’s a well-meant $80,000 buy by $7,500 stallion Marking. I love that dominant Remington rider Ramon Vazquez gets the call here and he’s been razor sharp riding this meet early in the week before heading back to OKC. That’s the play.