Hersh: How I'll play Saratoga on Sunday, July 29, 2018

The Saratoga main track should be dried out now but turf courses still wet, which is always at least a little cause for pause, but still diving in with a few plays on the Sunday card.

Race 4 ($36)
$20 win Love My Honey (#2)
$5 exacta key 2 with 1,3
$3 exacta key 1,3 with 2

Love My Honey (#2) debuts for a barn not well known for work with 2-year-old firsters but has too strong a work pattern to ignore at what ought to be a fair price. Combining in exacta with the two out of Churchill race 4 June 29.

Race 6 ($64)
$40 win Pony Up (#3)
50-cent trifecta 3 with 6,11,12 with all
$3 exacta 6,11,12 with 3

Pony Up (#3) might be an even better grass horse than the bare form suggests and almost certainly is better on grass than dirt. Freshened up for returned to preferred surface and ought to be a fair price in the win pool. I’m skeptical about the shorter prices and will try to get one of three longer shots into second and hit the trifecta, preferably with a bomb coming home third.

Race 7 ($78)
Not a lot of solid ground on which to stand in the late pick four unless you believe the hype on Wow Cat (#4) in the Shuvee (race 9). I kind of buy into it but will back up with a trio and won’t be sad if one of those comes out on top. And even if Wow Cat wins as well as Tommy T (#7), the likely favorite in race 7, races 8 (I’m playing this for the speed to fall apart) and 10 (rail-drawn favorite Powerstroke always stops) appear to have a good chance to generate some chaos.

Here’s a link to the play in DRF TicketMaker through which you can wager directly into DRF Bets. Here’s the ticket structure. The $78 cost is for a $1 all-A ticket and 50 cents on the other combinations:

Race 7
A – 3,7
C – 4,5

Race 8
A – 2,7,11
B – 5
C – 4

Race 9
A – 4
B – 2,5,7

Race 10
A – 7,12
B – 1,5
C – 3,9