Crist: With Anticipation analysis

Thursday’s Grade 2 With Anticipation for 2-year-olds on the turf at Saratoga probably offers players less information than any other stakes race at the meeting: Five of the eight (after the scratch of main-track-only Blame Jim) in the race, including nearly all the top contenders, are making just their second career starts. The race boils down to “Whose debut victory did you like best?”

On those grounds, I prefer Strong Coffee and Designed for War, who won their debuts here a week apart (Aug. 2. and Aug. 9, respectively.)

Strong Coffee, likely to be a better price, was the more dramatic winner. Two lengths off the early pace in that Aug. 2 turf route, he accelerated past the leaders in upper stretch and looked very sharp drawing off by three lengths in the final furlong.

Designed for War’s debut is more difficult to gauge because he strolled through very slow fractions while leading from start to finish in his debut (1:15.60 for six furlongs versus 1:13.85 in Strong Coffee’s race, and their final times were virtually identical.) Many will perceive Designed for War as having “stolen” that race, but he finished very strongly in good come-home time.

Startup Nation benefitted from a much faster setup winning his Aug. 7 debut, but any time a horse makes up 10 lengths on the leader in his first start, he deserves attention. He meets much stronger opponents here, but deserves a look at his 5-1 morning-line odds.