Churchill’s spring meet goes out with a bang this weekend, and Saturday’s card includes appearances by last year’s 3-year-old male and 3-year-old filly champions. I’m trying to take both down. Stephen Foster Mindframe’s a gorgeous horse. He was advanced physically as a 3-year-old, has a long, beautiful stride. What held him back last summer was his brain, not his body. Keeping that in mind, and if, as seems to be the case, Mindframe has his head in the game this year, he could be the value in the Foster, thanks to the presence of champion Sierra Leone. One line of thought questions whether Mindframe wants two turns. I get it. He’s 3 for 3 around one turn, 1 for 3 around two, and his Grade 1 last month came in the seven-furlong Churchill Downs. But in perceived potential weakness I see strength. Mindframe will prove to be a route horse, and he won the Churchill Downs over excellent long sprinters Nysos and Book’em Danno in spite of the distance, not because of it. Mindframe debuted too late to make the Derby though he did run on Derby Day, winning a first-level route allowance by a city block. His maiden victory came equally easily, and Mindframe actually cruised comfortably from a stalking position into an upper-stretch lead when connections jumped in class third time out into the Belmont. That’s where things unraveled. His career debut already well in hand, Irad Ortiz Jr. cropped Mindframe once, merely schooling. Mindframe didn’t react radically but edged right from a left-handed thump. Ortiz had no use for the crop in the Churchill romp, but in a Triple Crown race, Ortiz was hardly going to hand-ride to the wire. :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. Turned out that would’ve worked better in the Belmont. When Ortiz went to a serious left-handed stick, Mindframe took a serious right turn. Focused on the whip, not the race, shying and ducking, he gave the Belmont away through greenness. Remarkably, the same thing happened against the same tenacious horse, Dornoch, in the Haskell. Here, Ortiz intentionally kept Mindframe well away from his rivals as he again cruised to an upper-stretch lead. Then Ortiz went back to the crop, and Mindframe zigzagged his way to another excruciating defeat. Mindframe seems to have conquered that foible this year. He’s got way more positional pace than Sierra Leone and can press that advantage on a track where he’s 2 for 2. I expect Mindframe to have a lead at the three-sixteenths pole Saturday. And please, Mindframe, hold onto it this time. Fleur de Lis Dumb move taking Thorpedo Anna to win the La Troienne at odds-on. I believed even after Thorpedo Anna won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff that her gutsy loss in the Travers had put the filly over the top. Her two Oaklawn showings this year, while wins, left me cold. The manner of her La Troienne loss came as a surprise; the loss itself, not so much. I don’t think Thorpedo Anna’s bouncing back. If she does, great, a champion returning to form for a summer campaign. But I’m playing against her in the Fleur de Lis. Royal Spa defeated Gin Gin last month in the Shawnee Stakes, but Gin Gin’s the one to play Saturday. No idea where her Doubledogdare in April came from, since it far exceeded any previous showing, but Gin Gin in losing the Shawnee showed she could sustain that level. I firmly believe she better suits 1 1/8 miles than Royal Spa, who used her superior acceleration to jump on Gin Gin off the far turn last month. This time, Gin Gin sits a perfect pressing trip – outside a Horse of the Year who might or might not be vulnerable again. :: Get Daily Racing Form Past Performances – the exclusive home of Beyer Speed Figures Dominion Day With Funtastic Again set to run here rather than in Texas, there’s ample pace to set things up for Bail Us Out, who ran more than well enough last summer in the Ontario Derby to suggest he can rally and capture the Dominion Day. The addition of blinkers (a good move for trainer Kevin Attard) could really help a horse who loses his races during the middle stages, when he ought to travel better than he has. The turf comeback looks like a pure prep for this move back to Tapeta, and Bail Us Out, bred for distance and later maturity, seems all but certain to take a serious step forward in his second start at age 4. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.