I could not have been more impressed with Annual Report in his Futurity victory at Belmont Park. His Beyer Speed Figure zoomed 31 points in his second start to an 89, and it did not look like a fluke. Mark this one down for later. I hope the loyal readers got some of 17-1 Sarah Sis in the Raven Run, touted as potentially running a career-best Beyer. It didn’t exactly happen the way I envisioned, but it did happen, and she got a 92 in the best figure race of her life. Everyone knows I am a charter member of the Ben’s Cat fan club. I could not imagine how the horse could lose last Saturday’s Maryland Million Sprint Handicap. Watching, I thought he was going to win by five lengths at the top of the stretch. In the end, Ben tried really hard but lost a photo and ran his lowest dirt Beyer since the second race of his life more than five years ago. Ben got just an 83. He is still competitive but clearly is slowing down, which he has a right to do as a 9-year-old with 30 wins in 52 races. This Saturday’s Pin Oak Valley View at Keeneland looks very much like a race that is going to take right around a 90 Beyer to win. There are several candidates to hit that number, including Sunset Glow, who is coming off a 90, 89, 89 series, and Mrs McDougal, who had a solid run of 90, 91, 91 on three different grass courses before throwing in the first no-show of her career in the Sands Point. If that was an aberration, she is very live in this spot. Cara Marie fascinates me because she is once again going to be clear in a race with zero pace and is going to be a huge price. She put up little fight in her last two, but those were against much better horses. If she can get brave on the lead and run back to her Lake George performance, where she got a 90 and was beaten just a half-length by Mrs McDougal, she has a legit chance at an upset. It is a leap of faith, but leaping is easier when the price is right. Gap Year is trying stakes for the first time, but she also intrigues me. She has been terrific in her only two grass starts, with an 88 and an 87. She won’t have to improve much to have a realistic chance. And note that trainer Kiaran McLaughlin obviously had high hopes for her last year when he put her in stakes as a maiden and just after she won her maiden. Include Betty took one of the slower Grade 1 stakes in memory when she won the Mother Goose with an 85. She has been competitive in many of the 3-year-old filly graded stakes this year, but that is mostly because the races have been so slow. Now, she is trying grass for the second time. Her first grass start resulted in a too-late fifth in the Florida Oaks at Tampa Bay Downs in March. She might get bet a little because of her reputation. I would suggest betting against her in direct relation to how much action she takes. Om earned grass Beyers of 90, 90, and 97 when wiring the field in the Del Mar Derby. I can’t think of a reason his early speed and solid Beyers won’t take him a long way in the Twilight Derby at Santa Anita on Saturday. Om is slowly building a nice reputation as a grass horse, which should get him notoriety beyond being the answer to a trivia question: Who finished first in American Pharoah’s first race? You can probably put a line through Royal Albert Hall’s no-show in the Hill Prince on a soft course at Belmont. Back to the Southern California fairways in the Twilight Derby, the horse should be a lot closer to the nice group of figures he earned all year, culminating with a 92 when second to Om at Del Mar. Nice to see Dortmund back in the entries. He runs Saturday in the Big Bear at Santa Anita. He was 6 for 6 going into the Kentucky Derby, with a great winter-spring Santa Anita series of 104, 104, and 106. He got a clear lead in the Derby but went slightly backward to a 101. He tried in the Preakness, which was run in driving rain, but the conditions were strange enough that any result could be excused. Back for the first time since his fourth in the Preakness, Dortmund’s best is obviously more than good enough against a decent but far-from-great field of older horses. His opponents have combined to run 30 times this year, with just one triple-digit Beyer, Motown Men’s 103 in April.