Balmoral: Saturday 3/14 Analysis
Jeremey Day's analysis of the Saturday 3/14 card at Balmoral Park.
Jeremey DayMar 12, 2015
Jeremey Day's analysis of the Saturday 3/14 card at Balmoral Park.
When the past performances came out for Saturday’s card at Oaklawn Park – featuring the return of champions Untapable and American Pharaoh in the Azeri and the Rebel, respectively – my first question in handicapping the races was: Is either vulnerable? Knowing they’d be short prices, if one or both were beaten, it would offer the opportunity for a fat payoff.
Garnet Barnsdale's analysis of the Saturday 3/14 card at Woodbine Harness.
Ide Be Cool and Ibaka both went through spells as habitual winners. Ide Be Cool accounted for the first seven races of his career and Ibaka knocked out five straight wins at one point. Both will be out to start new streaks Saturday night in the $75,000 Borgata, the closing night feature at Delta Downs.
The lack of a stakes race on a Saturday card in high New Orleans racing season feels odd, but the most the Fair Grounds card this Saturday can offer is a veritable festival of entry-level allowance racing.
The Grade 2, $750,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park on Saturday is about more than the 3-year-old debut of champion American Pharoah. It’s a chance for him to get on the expressway to the Kentucky Derby.
The 2015 Barretts May sale of 2-year-olds in training and horses of racing age has been moved to Thursday, May 28, with the presale under-tack show scheduled for Tuesday, May 26.
Ami’s Flatter, who finished second to Carpe Diem in Saturday’s Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby, has been installed as the early 5-2 favorite for the 156th running of the Queen’s Plate at Woodbine on July 5.
Isabelle, twice a winner against New York-breds, looks well spotted to earn her first victory against open company when she heads a field of six entered in Saturday’s $100,000 Correction Stakes for older fillies and mares at Aqueduct.
The owners and trainers of upwardly mobile older fillies and mares were looking at $700,000 on the table Saturday and a choice between running in the Azeri Stakes at Oaklawn Park against champion Untapable and the Santa Margarita at Santa Anita Park against a California-bred winner of one major event who was sired by a $1,000 stallion. Guess which way they went.