Truth be told, Wednesday’s eight-race card “Where the Turf Meets the Surf” doesn’t do much for me from a wagering standpoint. Having said that, there are a couple of things that I think could be intriguing and I’m willing to at least explore making a few plays.
DRF handicapper Matt Bernier takes a closer look at juvenile races on Wednesday's Del Mar card.
If Puppy Manners (#2, 4-1) has a winning day in the fourth race at Del Mar on Wednesday, hopefully I will as well. Taking into account expected value, he is my day’s top play, and one on which I will be focusing a pick three wager, in addition to playing him to win the race itself.
There’s no shortage of speed in Wednesday’s Coronation Cup, where most of the 3-year-old fillies entered can be classified as early-pace types. The skull-buster of a turf sprint brings together horses from far and wide, and handicappers must evaluate last-race running lines from Belmont Park, Parx Racing, Penn National, and Woodbine as well as a first-time Lasix import from England and the Saratoga-loving Hot Squeeze, who wheels right back after wiring a New York-bred allowance over the course a week ago.
DRF handicapper Dan Illman takes a closer look at juveniles running at Saratoga.
It rained heavily at Woodbine on Monday, and there’s more rain in the forecast, so the course shouldn’t be as hard and as kind to speed as it was Sunday. The ground on the backstretch had some give to it when I walked on it Tuesday morning.
The Grade 2 Honorable Miss, the Monday feature at Saratoga, is a six-furlong prelude to the seven-furlong Grade 1 Ballerina on Travers Day. This year, though, three of the leading contenders for the Ballerina instead had their prep a week earlier, when Better Lucky, Grace Hall, and My Miss Aurelia all turned up in the ungraded Shine Again Stakes because of its seven-furlong distance.
Only one of the off-the-grass races sits in the late pick four sequence (races 6-9), and that’s where I’ll focus my attention today, ignoring the early races in terms of wagering, but keeping close tabs on race shapes on what could wind up a drying-out track.
Trip Notes for July 26-27: Jim Dandy, San Diego, Haskell, Bing Crosby and more by Michael Hammersly.
With an uncertain weather forecast and a slew of turf races scheduled for Saratoga on Monday afternoon, I'll focus on the late daily double, a sequence involving two dirt affairs.
