The 2-year-old filly Obey gave trainer Sam Scolamieri his first stakes win in more than 18 years when she won the $100,000 California Thoroughbred Breeders Association Stakes at Del Mar on Friday night.
We’ll start the pick three with a no-brainer single in the $200,000 Real Good Deal in race 5. GIMME DA LUTE (6) is coming off back-to-back wins in graded races and shouldn’t have any trouble handling the cutback in distance to seven furlongs while facing Cal-breds. He appeared to like the new surface when he earned a bullet for his five-furlong move here July 27, and he should get a perfect trip breaking from the outside post in the six-horse field.
As the commercial breeding industry was climbing out of its recent recession, the phrase “cautious optimism” was used to describe the state of the yearling market as frequently as a good horse was deemed to have “ticked all the boxes.” With the 2015 yearling season kicking into gear, “cautious optimism” has often been replaced by the phrase “it’s tough to buy the good ones.” The focus is not on the past today but on what many buyers and sales officials suggest is a solid market fueled by demand that may continue to move higher.
Occasionally, a racing card includes vulnerable or undervalued favorites that a bettor is virtually required to wager against.
Young stallions Bodemeister and Union Rags have sailed through each milestone of their nascent stud careers, proving popular as covering sires and weanling sires. They now approach another major test as the curtain rises on the selected yearling sale season with the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale, the first boutique sale in the category this year. Waiting in the wings to contend as prominent yearling sires this commercial season are a number of others who emerged with solid results at last month’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale, the first barometer of the market.
Holy maidens, Batman! Sunday’s Saratoga card features four maiden special weight events. Between that fact and the expected good weather, this is a card I’ll be excited to see in person. In maiden races, I’m a big believer in doing the preparatory trainer/pedigree work on paper, but then also consulting the workout reports, following the money, and doing my own paddock inspection before making a final decision.
Legatissimo won her second Group 1 race of the year by a convincing 2 1/4 lengths in Saturday’s $934,860 Nassau Stakes on the final day of the Goodwood meeting in England.
The lights will barely get a chance to dim in the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., before the yearling calendar picks right up again. Just four days after playing host to the Saratoga select yearling sale – the category’s first boutique auction of the season – Fasig-Tipton will conduct its annual New York-bred yearling sale, beginning Aug. 15. The same evening on the opposite coast, Barretts will hold its inaugural summer yearling sale at its new Del Mar location. The action continues from there. Here is a look at North America’s major yearling sales of 2015, in chronological order, following the Fasig-Tipton August selected yearling sale.
Haskell Day at Monmouth Park is the premier day for racing in New Jersey, and the card features some interesting betting races of course. Here's a look at the late pick five.
Following are horses to watch at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale based on their pedigrees and past auction performance of notable family members.
