BreezeFigs Quick-Pix for Saturday, October 15, 2016 by Bob Fierro and Jay Kilgore

Last week’s Pick turned out to be a mess. Our choice, Son of a Saint, slammed into another at the start and decided he wasn’t interested after that even though he did make up ground late. Dupree cut off another one at the start, set the pace, and ran totally out of gas late to finish third. Sorry. On the other hand, 15 BreezeFigs maidens did their job last week, winning at 10 tracks, and two others won Graded stakes. The maidens were broken at Belmont (two), Delaware, Fresno (two), Gulfstream West (two), Indiana ($72 payoff), Keeneland (two, including a perfectly playable $95 Group 1 first timer), Meadowlands, Parx (a BreezeFigs exacta), Santa Anita (two, including a BreezeFigs exacta), and Woodbine. Both stakes winners came at Keeneland—Dancing Rags and Fun ran 1-3 in the Grade 1 Alcibiades and later in the week La Coronel won the Grade III Jessamine on the turf. Today’s card is bursting with first-timers and one race stands out as a potential key event, see below. Good luck!

If you’d like to learn a little more about how we come up with BreezeFigs, take a look at our new website by clicking here: www.biodatatrack.com and click on the tab BreezeFigs at the top of the page. In there you will find a link to a major study of how over 17,000 BreezeFigs horses from the sales 2007 through 2013 have succeeded on the racetrack based on Group and stride length. You can also access that study by clicking this link: www.biodatatrack.com/BreezeFigs-Study.pdf.

Here’s Saturday’s Pick:

Keeneland, 10th Race, Maiden Special Weight, 6 Furlongs (Dirt)
What makes this race so intriguing is that the two first-timers are way ahead of the other three on the BreezeFigs scale and yet one, Takeoff, is at 9-to-2 and the other, Love That Lute, at 20-to-1. But what’s an eye-opener is that even though we might expect Mark Casse to be the trainer of the better fancied colt, the one who gets short shrift is in the barn of a Hall of Famer, Jack Van Berg, and that counts for something in our book. Takeoff certainly did that at OBSMAR where he flew to an eight-over-Par Group 2 profile with a 25,76 foot stride length (SL)—1.75 feet longer than average for colts that day at a furlong. Love That Lute almost matched that with a six-over-Par Group 1 profile at the decidedly less tony OBSJUN sale, but his SL of 25.64 was 1.84 feet longer than average that day. Bellows, who ran well in debut at Parx, chalked up an even-Par Group 2 profile at OBSAPR with a 23.13 foot SL—but that was more than a half-foot shorter than average that day. The other two have started once as well without impressing much: Rockshaw posted a modest one-under-Park Group 3 effort at OBSAPR with a 23.28 foot SL—more than a foot shorter than average that day at a quarter mile. Speightstime had a five-under-Par Group 3 profile at OBSMAR with a 22.68 foot SL, more than a foot and three quarters shorter than average, and was scratched from the sale (SCR) after that. Even though he may not be favored, Takeoff is a clear play here, and even though he is overlooked perhaps in the morning line, Love That Lute might be a playful gimmick pounce. Good luck!