Thursday TimeformUS Highlight Horse: Ridgewood Runner better than last two results suggest
Belmont at the Big A | Race 6 | Post Time 3:45 p.m. (ET)
A few of the top players in this allowance optional claimer must prove that they're still capable of recapturing their best form from prior seasons. Octane (#4) leads that list as he attempts to rebound from the poor efforts that closed out his 2024 season. He's making his return switching into the barn of Amelia Green, who has had success with limited starters in recent months. He appears to be working well, but he attracted Flavien Prat and isn't likely to be much of a price.
Nova Rags (#6) would benefit from any pace that develops in this spot, but he's also hard to trust after spending nearly a year on the shelf. His top efforts put him in the mix, but it's fair to wonder whether he's still capable of producing that form now as a 7-year-old. Rotknee (#3) is another with the back class to beat a field like this. However, he really tailed off in the second half of last year, and his return from a layoff last time was underwhelming. He's struggled to break sharply in recent outings, and that was a problem again last time. He did rush up to contest the pace, but did so into a slow opening quarter mile.
The horse with the best recent performance is Twenty Four Mamba (#1), who improved significantly off the claim for Ilkay Kantarmaci last time, upsetting a heavy favorite and earning one of the best speed figures of his career. While Tom Morley has pretty good statistics off the claim himself, I am a little concerned about this horse holding his form through all of these barn changes, especially since he lacked consistency previously.
My top pick is Ridgewood Runner (#2). He's obviously going to need a few rivals to underperform if he's to beat this field, but the likelihood of such a scenario playing out seems fairly strong. He is coming off two lackluster performances, but I can easily excuse his Tom Fool, where he was simply overmatched against superior competition. His last race is better than it looks, since he didn't break that sharply and was always out of position from there. He got shuffled back to last behind a slow pace and pushed wide on the turn, but he never stopped trying through the lane. This horse should get a more aggressive ride with the switch to apprentice Christopher Elliott and he goes out for a barn that is enjoying a very strong seasons so far.