Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Santa Anita Sprint, City of Hope Mile, Miss Grillo
The Kentucky Derby winner, the Dubai World Cup winner, and the Pegasus World Cup winner all see action Saturday – must be a decent Saturday of racing across North America.
Life Is Good, the Pegasus winner, can stop at the three-sixteenths pole, drink a bucket of oat milk, and still win the Woodward. Hopefully, he enjoys the experience: Things will be more challenging facing Flightline next month.
It still looks crazy seeing Dubai World Cup winner Country Grammer’s second-place finish, beaten 19 1/4 lengths, in the Pacific Classic – Flightline again. No Flightline in the Awesome Again, but Country Grammer is nothing like a Life Is Good cinch in that race.
Rich Strike’s fourth in the Travers validated his Derby shocker, showing he’s a colt of actual quality, not a million-to-one fluke. Richie starts in the very tough Lukas Classic at Churchill Downs, while Weekend GamePlan sticks to the coasts.
Santa Anita Sprint Championship
Man is the American dirt sprint division barren. Jackie’s Warrior, his last-start defeat aside, is a bona fide dirt-sprint star, but when American Theorem (all due respect) may be the second-best six-furlong dirt horse in the country, the cupboard looks bare.
I get the feeling a lot of folks are expecting 3-year-old Forbidden Kingdom to fill that void as he makes his first start since the Santa Anita Derby in the Santa Anita Sprint Championship. I’m skeptical. The fellow sophomores Forbidden Kingdom thumped in the San Vicente and San Felipe just have not proven to be especially high-class performers, and on Saturday, Forbidden Kingdom, who wants to show speed, is drawn inside the very fast Kid Corleone.
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Howbeit got a second look, since his summer form is clouded by two throw-out races, but I worry about this horse racing without Lasix, and in the end, Todo Fino got the call here over his Amador Sanchez-trained stablemate Super Ocho.
Both horses started off in Chile before coming to North America for a 2022 campaign, Super Ocho’s, oddly enough, began at Mountaineer, where he somehow went off at odds of 2-1 facing a deeply inferior field. Both in that race and his turf comeback run at Del Mar, Super Ocho failed to change leads, but while the presence of jockey Hector Berrios seems like it should mean something, I’m still siding with Todo Fino.
Todo Fino is a year older than Super Ocho and didn’t reach as high a class level in Chile, but he has proven all but unbeatable in dirt sprints. He was late to change leads at Del Mar in his American debut, but finally did so, and while his margin of victory was a diminishing half-length, Todo Fino galloped out well in front of the second-place finisher. The half-furlong cutback here only works in his favor, and Todo Fino can get a favorable outside stalking trip a few lengths behind the speed.
City of Hope Mile
Here’s an even shorter-priced SoCal favorite worth opposing – Beyond Brilliant.
Yes, Beyond Brilliant is the likely lone City of Hope speed. But Beyond Brilliant was fourth in the Kilroe Mile, his only turf-stakes start shorter than nine furlongs, and was considered for the 1 1/4-mile John Henry on this card because the colt wants more ground than this. Even on a clear lead, he’ll be vulnerable to a faster finisher, and Irideo can run him down.
Argentine import Irideo really, really needed his first two races following a year-plus layoff and hemisphere change, but he came around in June and has continued to improve. Last out in the Del Mar Mile, he ran into a very sharp winner, Hong Kong Harry, and if Irideo can deliver the same sort of finish Saturday, he can outfinish the City of Hope favorite.
Miss Grillo
It’s not impossible that the betting public goes crazy for Free Look and makes her favored over Be Your Best, which would make this a stupid opinion since the whole idea is taking Free Look to beat the natural chalk in the Miss Grillo, Be Your Best.
Be Your Best got a far, far better trip than Free Look when she comfortably beat her in their common career debut, and while Be Your Best did impress in her stakes win, she had a dream run at Saratoga. Meanwhile, Free Look showed she has some positional pace and a real turn of foot in her easy second-start maiden win, and this time she might get first run on Be Your Best.
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