Watchmaker: Belmont Stakes Day pick four play
Saturday’s all-Grade 1 stakes pick four, which begins in race 8 and concludes with the Belmont Stakes, has a guaranteed pool of $1.5 million. I’ll be playing it (among many other things on Saturday’s highly tempting card), and what follows are my thoughts on each race in this sequence.
Race 8: Just a Game Stakes
Ball Dancing is the probable favorite and is a must-use in all wagers. She showed quality last year winning the Sands Point in her U.S. debut and finishing second in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup. And if anything, Ball Dancing’s two performances this year were even better. She finished second in the Hillsborough in her 2015 bow to Stephanie’s Kitten, the best turf female in the country right now, and was decidedly best winning the Jenny Wiley most recently. Ball Dancing is a solid “A” horse for me.
Otherwise, I’m downgrading Tepin’s victory in the Churchill Downs Distaff Turf Mile on the Kentucky Derby undercard and Discreet Marq’s win in the Beaugay as both controlled extremely slow paces. And I’m upgrading the chances of some of the closers who chased them in vain in those races.
Coffee Clique, Sandiva, and Lady Lara finished second, third, and fourth to Tepin at Churchill. Coffee Clique, the winner of this race last year, and Lady Lara, the winner of the Pebbles over the course last fall in her U.S. bow, will be mains for me with Ball Dancing. I question whether Sandiva is as good as those two, so I’m pegging her as a backup along with Photo Call, who rallied to be second in the Beaugay in a, for me, surprising effort.
Race 9: Met Mile
This has been one of my very favorite races for many years, and this 122nd running drew a tremendous field. I have three main horses here, and two – Tonalist and Bayern – are very logical. Tonalist couldn’t have been more impressive winning the Westchester in his seasonal bow, and last year’s Belmont Stakes winner is undefeated in four starts over the track.
Bayern, by contrast, was absolutely awful in his first start of the year, finishing a distant sixth in the Churchill Downs Stakes. But the controversial winner of last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic is much too good a horse to take that outing at face value. Bayern merits a chance to make amends, especially here at Belmont, where he was a sensational winner of the Woody Stephens on the undercard of last year’s Belmont Stakes.
My other “A” horse is Wicked Strong. Wicked Strong’s two efforts this year – a fourth in the Gulfstream Park Handicap and a third in the Exclesior – were not good. At all. But trainer Jimmy Jerkens really has knuckled down on Wicked Strong since the Excelsior with three very sharp workouts, and if this colt ever is to return to the form that saw him beat Tonalist last summer in the Jim Dandy and finish ahead of him when nosed in the Travers, this might be the time.
My two backups here are Tamarkuz and Honor Code. I question whether Tamarkuz’s Meydan form matches up in this spot, but he is first-time Lasix for new trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, and that is almost an automatic play for me. I’m an Honor Code fan, and I’m willing to write off his dull performance in the Alysheba to not liking the track. But while Honor Code always has been a deep closer, I don’t like how he has turned into a horse that now loses complete contact with his field early.
I am not using Private Zone on any tickets. Private Zone is a cool horse, but even though he shows a win and a second in the last two Cigar Miles and a narrowly beaten second at this mile distance to Honor Code in the Gulfstream Park Handicap, I think Private Zone is best at seven furlongs or less. His two Cigar Mile finishes, especially his win, were aided by track biases, and he got away with a very slow opening quarter in the Gulfstream Handicap.
Race 10: Manhattan Stakes
This is an open race, and I’m using three mains and three backups.
My mains are the much-improved Finnegans Wake, who is so good right now that he won the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic on Derby Day going a nine-furlong distance that probably is shorter than his best and who now gets an additional furlong Saturday; Big Blue Kitten, who beat lesser in the Fort Marcy in his seasonal bow but who did so in a manner that suggests he is back to his Grade 1-winning form of 2013; and Magic Artist, a wild-card shipper from Europe who looks better than ever this year and who catches a group that is not overly imposing.
My backups are Twilight Eclipse and War Dancer, the one-two finishers in last month’s Man o’ War, a race that was made much easier to perform well in when Imagining was mugged in the early strides; and Legendary, a big longshot who had an impossible trip last time in the Dixie and whose form last fall wasn’t bad.
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Race 11: Belmont Stakes
I picked American Pharoah, Materiality, Madefromlucky, and Frosted in that order in my Belmont Stakes analysis posted elsewhere on this site. I was very impressed with American Pharoah’s Preakness in how he romped after being pressed into fast (for the conditions) early fractions. And I loved Materiality’s sixth in the Kentucky Derby, finishing well after being much farther back early than he is accustomed after missing his break. And as the only two true pace horses in the race, but also pace horses who relax and rate kindly, I think they are going to go around the track one-two. But I’m going to use Materiality in equal strength with American Pharoah as an “A” because I think having both that way goes a long way toward sewing the race up.
Although I picked Madefromlucky third, I think he’s more of an underneath horse in vertical wagers, and I actually consider Frosted more of a potential win option. This is an important distinction for multi-race exotic wagers that require horses to win. So I’ll throw in Frosted, who was a terrific fourth in the Kentucky Derby but who seems up against the pace scenario I envision for the Belmont, as a backup, just for the sake of coverage. It doesn’t cost much at all to do it.
Here’s the play, in main/backup format:
Race 8: 1,4,8/2,10
Race 9: 4,6,7/5,9
Race 10: 3,5,9/2,4,6
Race 11: 5,8/6