Mike Watchmaker

It says a lot about the unsettled nature of the 2011 racing season that, after trouncing a moderate group of fellow 3-year-olds in Saturday’s Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing for his first stakes win of the year, To Honor and Serve has overnight become a popular wise guy horse for the Breeders’ Cup Classic. And almost all of what it has to say is not complimentary.

There have been a few performances that might have been equally impressive, but for my money, there has been no performance this year that was more impressive than Winter Memories’s victory in Saturday’s Grade 1 Garden City Stakes at Belmont.

Maybe it’s because they are so fast they can’t be caught to put a saddle on them (just kidding, in case you weren’t sure), but I find it interesting that the four horses with the four highest Beyer Speed Figures this year at any distance on any surface have a total of only eight 2011 starts between them. Here are thumbnail profiles on this quartet:

If a 3-year-old stays around long enough, he or she will eventually have to face older horses. That said, there is still something very exciting about the big prospective matchups of 3-year-olds against older horses at this Belmont Park fall meeting, which begins Saturday.

Since May, I’ve occasionally relayed the latest Breeders’ Cup future book odds. The most recent Breeders’ Cup future book odds from the race and sports book at Wynn Las Vegas are out, and I thought I’d pass along the current favorites for the seven races Wynn has posted.