Saturday TimeformUS Highlight Horse: Atone cycling up to better effort in Fort Marcy

Belmont at the Big A | Race 8 | Post Time 4:39 p.m. (ET)

Most handicappers will just concede this Fort Marcy to Ottoman Fleet (#5), who seeks to conquer this Grade 2 event for the second year in a row. He had an inconsistent winter in Dubai but he returned to form last month at Newmarket, winning the same prep race that propelled him to victory here a year ago. The difference between that race and this one is that he got a strong pace to close into in last year’s edition, and there doesn’t appear to be much speed signed on this time. These Appleby runners are almost always overbet these days, and this is a fairly competitive spot.

The rival with the best recent form appears to be Siege of Boston (#8), who has earned a slew of TimeformUS Speed Figures exceeding 120. However, he’s only won 3 races in his career and has settled for minor awards in his last five starts. He ran well to get up for second behind the classy Emmanuel in the Canadian Turf last time, but there’s another horse out of that race who interests me more.

My top pick is Atone (#2). He’s another who hasn’t won a race in quite some time, not since winning the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup over a year ago. However, after hitting a rough patch in the second half of 2023, he appears to be coming back around in his recent starts. He finished fifth behind Siege of Boston in that Canadian Turf two back, but had the tougher trip. He was never inside, and was angled out to launch a 4-wide run around the far turn, which is rarely successful at Gulfstream. He followed that up with a solid performance in the Kentucky Cup Classic, meeting a strong field for a synthetic Grade 3. I like him getting back to turf, and I’m intrigued by the switch to Kendrick Carmouche. He rode this horse aggressively in a gate-to-wire victory over this course in late 2022, and I wonder if he’ll try to get more speed out of him once again. That could be a successful strategy in a race without much early speed.