Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Saratoga Special, Bison City, Sorrento
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As of Tuesday, Saturday was supposed to feature an East Coast festival of turf racing, multiple graded stakes carded in New York and Virginia. Then Tropical Storm Debby began drifting north. What a downer. Colonial already has moved Saturday races to Sunday, and all the rain leaves limited stakes options.
Saratoga Special
Trainer Wesley Ward before the Tremont proclaimed Touchy his top 2-year-old. After finishing second, he sent the colt back to Kentucky, and Touchy’s return to racing at Saratoga as the likely favorite here comes sans blinkers. Workout video offers few clues, other than Touchy is ahead of schedule physically, and that fans of big-headed horses will like him.
Touchy figures to show speed – as will horses drawn inside and outside him. The horse that won the Tremont returned to lose; the third-place finisher races Sunday at Ellis Park. Touchy is an underlay.
First Resort, second choice at 7-2, has a tough inside draw if, as in a game debut win, he wants to show speed. He’s the first foal to race from a mare who won a Grade 1 over seven furlongs on dirt – promising. First Resort probably needs a tactical change to win.
Global Legend at 15-1 on the line holds some appeal, as much as anything because of a very competitive recent breeze in company with the graded stakes-class older horse Strong Quality.
Showcase beat little in his debut but did so under a hand ride and by a wide margin. He galloped out long and strong in his July 26 drill. Keep It Easy easily beat a short field of maidens after making a comfortable lead in his second start. His Aug. 4 workout time looks flashier than the drill itself.
I’m siding with Louisiana-bred Smoken Wicked, another colt who appears large and powerful for his age. Obviously, Smoken Wicked beat modest opposition in his Evangeline Downs debut, but he also won over a wet track, which could come into play here, while showing speed. His second start came following a barn change and circuit switch in a far stronger race and with a much more challenging trip.
Smoken Wicked traveled well enough while stalking the pace into the turn of the Bashford Manor, but the jockey, trying not to be five or six wide, snugged him behind a rival who didn’t take Smoken Wicked anywhere. While Smoken Wicked sat and suffered from the three-eighths to the five-sixteenths, the eventual winner clipped past on the far outside, coming to the homestretch with all the momentum while Smoken Wicked just was getting untracked.
Smoken Wicked finished strongly and experience gained at Churchill can serve him well at Saratoga.
Bison City
Trainer Josie Carroll runs three in the Bison City, including likely favorite Kin’s Concerto. The time to play Kin’s Concerto was the Woodbine Oaks, where she offered odds of 9-2 dripping with value after a runner-up finish in an allowance race where she was best.
A Little Frisky, another for Carroll, finished an interesting fifth in the same allowance before pulling an impossible trip in the Woodbine Oaks. She’ll be an overlay, but I like Carroll’s other horse, the second-time starter Ontario.
Bred top and bottom like a route horse, Ontario broke slowly and raced from the rear debuting in a seven-furlong maiden which unfolded at a slow pace that would tamp down the final time and, consequently, the filly’s Beyer Speed Figure.
Ridden with utmost confidence (the jockey understandably winds up on Kin’s Concerto; Frankie Dettori will do), Ontario sling-shotted into contention while wide to the quarter pole and won easily while very much looking like a filly capable of handling more distance and stronger competition. No workout video, but fast times in the interim drills. Ontario in the Bison City.
Sorrento
One can see why Noonie fetched nearly two million bucks at auction. She’s a powerhouse and a powder keg, and while she’s the most likely Sorrento winner, one wonders how she’ll cope with a pressured inside trip, possibly as an odds-on favorite.
No surprise if Noonie runs away with this, but Vodka With a Twist can win at a fair price.
It’s the way she’s breezed since moving to California as much as her sharp Kentucky stakes score that makes Vodka With a Twist interesting. Placed on the inside, Vodka With a Twist on Aug. 4 outworked the graded stakes-class older filly Super Shine, and she’s the one with the favorable Sorrento draw.
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