Hersh: How I'll play Santa Anita on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018

I’ll have some action early, middle, and late on this multi-stakes Santa Anita card headlined by three Grade 1s – the Awesome Again, the American Pharoah, and the Chandelier.

RACE 1
Play: 50-cent pick five
Total outlay: $27

Taking a mild caveman swing at the early pick five. If you’re interested in getting more heavily invested, there are other win options in the lid-lifter, but I’ll restrict things to one of the two Baffert firsters, IMPROBABLE (#2), and the horse who just ran second to a sharp Baffert firster, GRAY MAGICIAN (#1). Race 2 is the linchpin: Really like when a surface switch produces an obvious form bump, which is what happened with ROCKY ROGUE (#9) on Del Mar turf last out. Speed was drawn inside last time and has a better outside post here, and won’t be the favorite. Will try beating favored Offshore Affair (#8) in race 3 while taking three swings, two of them pricier. OMAHA BEACH (#8) rates a strong chance stretching out to a mile in race 4, a 2-year-old turf-route maiden, but Peter Miller often is dangerous with firsters in these spots [BOX ON (#1)], while third-time starter NEPTUNE’S STORM (#2) has grass on both sides of pedigree for turf debut. In race 5, Fire to the Wire (#6) is a claim-and-drop favorite potentially worth opposing.

R1: 1,2
R2: 9
R3: 1,2,3
R4: 1,2,8
R5: 1,2,4

RACE 6
Play: win, exacta
Total outlay: $26

Been keeping tabs through late summer on JEFE (#3). Trainer Keith Desormeaux has kept himself and his client in the 2-year-old stakes game year after year while focusing on later-developing horses who will go a route of ground. Maybe Jefe just isn’t good enough, but the sense is it’s all been a progression leading to this and, if he proves out, the BC Juvenile. Will back him up underneath GUNMETAL GRAY (#2).
$20 win 3
$6 ex 2-3

RACE 9
Play: 50-cent pick four
Total outlay: $24

West Coast in the Awesome Again (RACE 11) should suck in enough money to make singling ACCELERATE (#6) a not-terrible proposition. The play takes an anti-Del Mar Debutante position in race 9, the Chandelier, using three horses who weren’t in that race as well as BRILL (#4), who was dismal enough that I don’t mind just pitching that performance. Only want prices in race 10, the Rodeo Drive, and casting the widest net in the sequence over the Unzip Me, down the hill for 3-year-old fillies to finish things off.

R9: 2,3,4,5
R10: 1,4,7
R11: 6
R12: 4,9,10,11