Michael Hammersly's weekly "Trip Notes" feature, which includes graded stakes from the previous weekend - this edition including the 2013 Santa Anita Derby and Wood Memorial.
Undefeated Verrazano gets tested for class and distance in Saturday’s Grade 1 Wood Memorial, a refrain not unique to him by any means, but every bit the key question of the weekend as the likely Kentucky Derby favorite if successful. The Santa Anita Derby appears to be a best in show contest amongst an eclectic trio of Baffert stablemates, with Flashback an odds-on favorite.
BreezeFigs Quick-Pix for Saturday, April 6th by Bob Fierro & Jay Kilgore.
After a disappointing effort in the Rebel Stakes, Super Ninety Nine can't afford a bad showing in the Santa Anita Derby and is the value play in that Grade 1 test.
Salutos Amigos was much the best winning his second Santa Anita start, a performance that was flattered when soundly beaten runner up Zee Bros came back to win his next start with a 102 Beyer.
Michael Hammersly's A's, B's, and C's for the Saturday, April 6, 2013 card at Santa Anita Park.
No matter how Saturday at Santa Anita unfolds, the Derby Day program will have a hard time topping the Fair Grounds card held on Easter Sunday. Free money is a good thing, and Fair Grounds was giving it away.
It is one thing to put a $1 million stakes race on your calendar. It is another to make that race worth $1 million to the winner. That is what they have done with the now $1.5 million Charles Town Classic, scheduled for its fifth running April 20.
It may be too early to give up on Super Ninety Nine following his disappointing fifth-place finish in the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park on March 16. A good performance in Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby puts him right back on many Kentucky Derby watch lists.
Trip Notes: Florida Derby, Louisiana Derby, and more
