Bernier: How I'd play Santa Anita on Sunday, Oct. 5
I’d love to play the late pick four Sunday at Santa Anita, but the finale is a wide-open baby race that features horses with little or no experience.
Matt BernierOct 05, 2014
I’d love to play the late pick four Sunday at Santa Anita, but the finale is a wide-open baby race that features horses with little or no experience.
Two $100,000 turf stakes for 2-year-olds carry Breeders’ Cup ramifications Sunday at Santa Anita.
A couple stakes to start the late pick four have appeal, and with a large, inscrutable field to close out the gimmick, there appears the chance for a nice hit.
Very carefully, that’s how – because it’s a rainy Saturday at Belmont Park, where five races have been switched to a sloppy main track.
Boisterous (7-5) ships in from Saratoga for the Grade 3 Durham Cup Stakes, which will be his first Polytrack start since he ran second to Successful Dan in the Grade 3 Ben Ali at Keeneland in 2013. The turf expert has competed exclusively in Grade 1 and Grade 2 stakes, since notching an April 5 allowance at Keeneland. His best showing in those added-money events was third behind Wise Dan and Seek Again in the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic at Churchill.
Top to bottom, the best stakes card of the Keeneland fall meet takes place Saturday, with five stakes on the docket, many with Breeders’ Cup ramifications.
Saturday’s 11-race card includes four stakes worth a combined $1.7 million. The three graded stakes – the Champagne, Frizette, and Hill Prince – are worth $500,000 each. The stakes action begins in race 4 with the $200,000 Temperence Hill, a 1 5/8-mile marathon on the main track that drew a field of six long-winded older males.
DRF Plus graded stakes analysis for the Indian Derby and Indiana Oaks by Marcus Hersh.
Big fields add up to a lot of opportunities at Santa Anita on Saturday, but it’s a small field that may prove your linchpin for multirace wagers.
Friday marks the return of racing at Keeneland with the start of the fall meet, and more notably, a return to dirt racing after years of having a synthetic Polytrack surface.