Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Bango, Wise Dan, Royal North

Not that anyone cares – I’ve been covering horse racing almost a quarter-century. I love horses and would like to think I’ve learned at least a tiny something about them.

The best part of my job is going to a quiet racetrack early in the morning and watching good horses train. No horse, save perhaps Arrogate in Dubai nine years ago, has given me the same feeling as Sovereignty.

Not that anyone cares – I’ve been making the case for Sovereignty’s greatness since early last summer.

I expect to see something memorable Saturday in the Stephen Foster – knowing full well after all these years in racing that you’d better get used to being very wrong, very often.

Bango

It’s sitting right there in front of our face: Dr. Venkman in his most recent race finished third with an excellent 105 Beyer Speed Figure in the world’s most important dirt sprint, the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. And he’s a distant second choice, at 7-2, in the Grade 3 Bango.

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I’m not quibbling with the line – the price might be about right. I’m just saying those are the wrong odds on this horse.

Coming into the first race of his 6-year-old season, Dr. Venkman has made a mere 12 starts. He is far from used up.

Venkman won each of his first two races, both at Del Mar, by more than five lengths, and third out shipped to finish second by a head in the Perryville at Keeneland, beaten by Keeneland-based Raise Cain, who never was the same horse afterward.

Not saying it was misguided, but they tried to make a route horse out of Dr. Venkman during 2024. He showed his versatility and quality winning the 1 1/16-mile San Diego. Even going 1 1/4 miles in the Pacific Classic, he was beaten just three lengths.

Look at it like this, Dr. Venkman’s 2025 season, when he returned to his best game – sprinting – represented his first fully realized campaign. His first start last year came against mighty Nysos, and a horse who would prefer stalking on the outside drew the rail three times in six starts and had post 2 in another race.

The BC Sprint absolutely did not come out of nowhere, and in one more jump, Dr. Venkman’s second. This horse is fresh, appears to have worked well for his comeback, finally drew outside, and could get a great setup. Second choice on the line, first choice on value.

Wise Dan

I’m not supposed to go back to Chasing the Crown here since I was on him in the Opening Verse, where he lost the most brutal of head bobs to Lagynos.

I’m going back.

Don’t know why, but this is just one of those horses who has been on my radar a very long time, really since his third-start maiden win going one mile at Churchill, a race that really caught my eye.

Ups and downs? You bet, but when Chasing the Crown is good, he’s very good. That troubled third at 64-1 in the 2025 Pegasus World Cup Turf? No fluke.

Last November through this past March, one might have wondered if Chasing the Crown could still bring it, but his last race answered that question. Why hasn’t the horse posted a timed workout since June 12? No idea, but that last work, for a turf horse breezing on dirt, was very good, and after 24 starts and more than four years, I trust that trainer Mike Maker knows this horse.

Flavien Prat taking the mount does not hurt my feelings one bit. Odds something like the listed 9-2? I’m going back.

Royal North

Reagan’s Flame, you realize, began her career strictly a turf horse. More recently, she ran three very good turf races just last summer. If the question is whether Reagan’s Flame can carry her excellent synthetic form to grass, I don’t see why the answer isn’t an emphatic yes.

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Not sure why the jockey from her last start winds up on a different horse (Woodbine kingpin Mark Casse does train that horse) because the jockey could not have ridden Reagan’s Flame with more confidence last time. He let her fade back to last going to the three-eighths pole, seemingly certain that Reagan’s Flame would produce the major move that she delivered under only mild encouragement.

This odd distance, 7 1/2 furlongs around two turns, should pose no problem for a horse who has looked like a new animal this year running both long and short.

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