Natural disasters, decoupled casinos, contentious senate confirmations – all that melts into the labyrinth of the past-performances puzzle if you reach the access concentration Buddhists seek through meditation. But we’re not looking for inner peace. We’re looking for Saturday stakes winners. Lecomte I don’t know exactly what price Built will offer in the Lecomte Stakes. He’s favored at 3-1 on the morning line. Might go a little lower than that, but not too much. Built, you see, made an easy lead and capitalized on it landing the Gun Runner Stakes on Dec. 21 at Fair Grounds, and many players will hold that against him. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. I’m going the other direction, taking away something very positive from the Gun Runner, adding it to what we saw in Built’s maiden win at Keeneland, and coming up with a colt who will offer fair value in the Lecomte win pool. Granted, winning the Lecomte will require some racing luck, with as many as 13 starting (Admiral Dennis is coming out) and Built drawn wide. But the Lecomte drew several fast horses exiting sprint races. The race will unfold at a much stronger tempo than the Gun Runner – and that won’t hurt Built at all. There are runoff pacesetters, and then there are early leaders like Built, who relaxed beautifully into Jareth Loveberry’s rating hold last month. The revelation of that capability carried additional weight because Built was making just his third start, his first going two turns, and could have been too sharp following a 10-week layoff. Built has more than an off switch – he has dirt acceleration like a turf horse. In his seven-furlong maiden win he showed that push-button move when asked to go at the five-sixteenths pole, and Built, given his cue around the far turn of the Gun Runner, put his rivals into a deep sleep with an excellent 23.50-second fourth quarter-mile. We’ve seen the same thing in his two works between starts: Turn off, blast home. He can do that stalking a fast pace just as well as leading on a slow one. There’s really just one horse to beat here, Disco Time, and Built looks better. Unusual Heat Turf Classic I wonder if trainer Dean Pederson might’ve been a little cagey when he told Daily Racing Form last week that On the Whim had finished eighth as the favorite in a Nov. 30 Del Mar allowance race because the horse had an off day. “He was a touch flat that day. He’s got no excuse,” Pederson said. Guess so, but I thought Pederson merely was using a $55,000 allowance as a bridge to this $175,000 stakes. And if you followed the way Pederson guided another California-bred turf stakes runner, Carmelita’s Man, through the peak of his career, you figured out that this was a trainer who knew how to get a horse to peak at the right time. Carmelita’s Man, in fact, finished second by a half-length at odds of 12-1 in the 2024 renewal of this race. On the Whim has sprinted in half his 10 starts and even won a California-bred stakes two back going 6 1/2 furlongs down the Santa Anita hill. Yet in watching a number of his races, I see a horse who might find his best form stretching to this 1 1/8-mile trip. He has good positional route pace, which helped him win the California Dreamin’ around two turns at Del Mar in August, and it looked like On the Whim was even more superior that day than the 1 1/4-length margin. He won’t be 10-1 on Saturday, as he was in the California Dreamin’, but On the Whim can win it at a fair price. Jennings As long as someone, anyone – and there are a couple candidates – can keep Speedyness from a clear, easy lead, I like Big Blue Line to run them down in his first start against fellow Maryland-breds. Big Blue Line’s last three starts: Tapeta route, turf marathon, turf marathon. None of that is what the horse wants to do. He might best suit a two-turn, middle-distance dirt race, but that one-turn-mile victory at Churchill in June shows that the Jennings configuration works well enough. Big Blue Line has lost a step since his peak two winters ago at Fair Grounds, but he remains capable, and video of his Dec. 28 work at Turfway is very encouraging. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.