Hersh: Saratoga pick four play for Wednesday, July 23
With a 60 percent chance of rain after 3 p.m. in Saratoga Springs, and a card back-loaded with grass races, we’ll stick to the front end of the Wednesday program and try for the early pick four, which, because of a steeplechase race in the opener, spans races 3-6.
This isn’t an ideal play by any stretch, because the sequence could get mighty chalky. In race 3, graded-stakes dropping GOT LUCKY (No. 5) will be a short price, and while she hasn’t panned out as well as I thought she might this year, her best race still is better than anything any of her rivals have put up. She’s hardly invulnerable, however, and the ticket has a couple “B’s” and “C’s” in the race.
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Race 4 has no such defined favorite, and my top choice in the race, DEADICATED DEAL (No. 3), is 10-1 on the morning line. Would love to get him home, but will include two more “A’s” – shorter prices both – as well as 20-1 shot AWESOME HEART (No. 8), whose form is clouded by a last-start slop-flop, as a “B.”
GIRLABOUTOWN (No. 2) will be heavily favored in race 5 off a good second on debut, but she did not finish fast in the race, and two firsters – her stablemate MOONLIGHT FANTASY (No. 3) and VERISMILITUDE (No. 5) – might be capable of surprising.
ARTEMIS AGROTERA (No. 1) will whip her rivals in race 6 if she comes back to her best 2-year-old form. She was ambitiously placed in her 3-year-old debut, the Acorn, but her dull performance that day and her flat run in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies leaves open the chance she might never get back to those first two starts. Thus, as with Got Lucky, we back up with a couple “B’s” and “C’s.”Given minimal spreading, I’ve bumped the per-bet cost above 50 cents where possible, and I might punch the all A’s a couple more times to ensure profitibility if all the chalk hits.
Here’s how things look on DRF’s invaluable TicketMaker: