Friday TimeformUS Highlight Horse: Unbridled Bomber better than recent form suggests

Saratoga | Race 4 | Post Time 2:13 p.m. (ET)

A couple of runners with graded stakes credentials figure to vie for favoritism in this high-level allowance/optional claimer. Rocket Can (No. 1) competed in the 2023 Kentucky Derby, where he didn’t even run that badly to beat half the field. Yet he missed plenty of time thereafter and is now trying to get back on track as a 4-year-old. He did get a wide trip last time, but I’m not convinced of his overall quality, and he’s going to get bet based on name recognition.

Castle Chaos (No. 3) arguably stands on more solid ground since he has recent form in graded stakes company that would make him awfully tough against a field like this. However, he dropped down to this level last time and could only manage a third-place finish. He fell far back early and was trying to rally wide on July 26, a day that featured a minor rail bias. Yet that performance does make me wonder if he’s just a horse that runs to the level of his competition, content to settle for another minor award.

The Pace Projector is predicting a situation favoring front-runners, which might help Winit (No. 7) most of all. This temperamental Tapit gelding can be unpredictable at times and is often hampered by a tendency to break slowly. Yet drawing outside figures to help his cause, and he does seem to do his best work at this one-mile distance.

The pace does not figure to aid my top pick Unbridled Bomber (No. 6), but I don’t think this horse has to be as far back as the Pace Projector indicates. He was running races a year ago that would put him squarely in the mix against this field. It might appear that he’s gone off form, but he has a series of slow pace excuses. He had no chance to make up ground in a merry-go-round race at Parx Racing two back, out of which another closer, fifth-place finisher Magic Michael, returned to improve by 16 TimeformUS points in his next start. Then last time he was again compromised by dawdling early fractions in a race dominated up front. He’s gotten some time off since then and is now reunited with Jose Ortiz, who is 12 for 54 (22 percent, $2.49 ROI) when teaming up with James Ryerson in dirt races over the last five years. Jose Ortiz has had success with this horse in the past and is one of the few jockeys to get him more involved early in his races.