Litfin's preview: Five stakes highlight Stars and Stripes card

Fast & good – $34,793 pick six carryover

What a difference a day makes. After muddy and yielding conditions on the Fourth of July, the main track is fast, and the turf will be labeled “good.”

The temporary rails are down on both turf courses, and the inside paths likely will offer the best footing.

There is a pick six carryover of $34,793, beginning with race 5 at 3:28 p.m. Eastern.

Five stakes on Stars and Stripes card

There’s something for everyone on the inaugural Stars and Stripes program, with five stakes scattered throughout the 10-race program – three of them for 3-year-olds on turf and dirt and two for older males going short and long on the main track.

The Dwyer: 97 and who d’ya like?

Captain Serious, Kid Cruz, and Tiz Dark come at the Dwyer (race 4) from different ways but look evenly matched based on their last-out victories that earned identical 97 Beyer Figures.

The New York-bred Captain Serious has never been this far, and Tiz Dark has never faced winners. Perhaps this gives the stakes-seasoned router Kid Cruz a theoretical edge, but the deep closer will need those two to establish an honest pace.

Wide-open Belmont Sprint Championship

Formerly run as the James Marvin Stakes on opening day at Saratoga, this event, carded as race 6, has been repositioned, renamed, and had its purse quadrupled to $400,000.

Central Banker, who had to be scratched from the Met Mile due to a medication snafu, makes his first start since taking the Churchill Downs on the Kentucky Derby undercard and figures close in a potential cavalry charge with several others capable of firing a Beyer in the 105 range.

Dads Caps, who stole the Carter Handicap at Aqueduct, was compromised by a slow start in the True North and could shake out as the controlling speed with a better break.

Clearly Now posted a career-best effort winning the Bold Ruler with a 109 Beyer here last fall and has had several explainable defeats since then.

Eight foreigners invade for Derby, Oaks

They’ve come from far and wide for the $1.25 million Belmont Derby (race 7) and the $1 million Belmont Oaks (race 9) for 3-year-old males and fillies, respectively, on the inner turf at 1 1/4 miles and the first and third legs of a pick four with a $500,000 guaranteed pool.

The Oaks, a Win and You’re In race for the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf, attracted the top three finishers from the Wonder Again Stakes here May 25; an unbeaten New York-bred; and a host of others who last ran in France (two), Ireland (two), England, California, and Canada.

Romansh heads competitive Suburban

There’s no longer a Handicap Triple Crown per se, but this edition of the Suburban (race 8), which has been lengthened back to its former distance of 1 1/4 miles, does bring together six horses that ran in either the Met Mile or the Brooklyn on June 7.

It’s a solid match-up in which Norumbega, Micromanage, and Ever Rider shorten up from 1 1/2 miles against Romansh, Vyjack, and Moreno, who stretch out from a flat mile.

It would seem like Romansh’s “A” race gets it, and he is favorably weighted, getting five pounds from the four-time graded stakes winner Last Gunfighter.

Horse to watch

GIRLABOUTOWN
Trainer: Mike Hushion
Last race: July 4, 2nd
Finish: 2nd by 1 1/4
Beyer: 73

Although she was unable to fend off her more experienced entry-mate, this homebred filly by A.P. Indy showed good speed in a promising debut at six furlongs, and she is bred to handle more distance.