Back in 2014, Gayle Benson’s GMB Racing hatched a plan. The Bensons (husband Tom is since deceased), owners of the New Orleans Saints of the NFL and Pelicans of the NBA, are bound tight to the fabric of New Orleans, and they sent three native New Orleanian trainers – Tom Amoss, Al Stall, and Dallas Stewart – out to Thoroughbred auctions. The only stipulation was each trainer had a budget cap. The trainers could spend the funds any way they liked. Stall went all in on a scopey chestnut Smart Strike colt, and the $330,000 he cost ate up nearly his entire budget. In the meantime, Mo Tom, a horse Amoss bought, took the Bensons to the 2016 Kentucky Derby. In early 2019, the horse Stall bought, Tom’s d’Etat, was only an allowance-race winner, a 6-year-old with nine starts and nagging physical problems. Now, halfway through his 7-year-old season, Tom’s d’Etat has paid back dollars to dimes on Stall’s auction gambit. He’s won four of his last five, including the Grade 1 Clark last fall and a most measured victory over Improbable in his 2020 debut. For my money, he’s the best older dirt-route horse in North America – a point he can drive home Saturday in the Stephen Foster at Churchill. By My Standards is in great form but won’t be able to contain Tom. And neither, despite lone-speed status, is Serengeti Empress going to hold off odds-on Midnight Bisou in the Fleur de Lis at Churchill. Let’s try Belmont for better stakes prices. Just a Game Uni – what a tigress of a turf miler she became in 2019. She sets herself up with a first move on the far turn before unleashing an electric stretch burst, and she was a mighty winner of the Breeders’ Cup Mile in her 5-year-old finale. She’s lightly raced and could easily get back to her best form at age 6, but she’ll be odds-on to win the Just a Game, her first start in nearly seven months, and did miss time late this spring with a popped splint. The Uni I watched breezing (and breezing strongly!) on video in June looks meaningfully heavier than the BC Mile winner. And why wouldn’t she be? Uni came back for 2020 to win the BC Mile in November, not the Just a Game in June. :: Click to learn about our DRF's Free Past Performance program. Newspaperofrecord, the second choice in the Just a Game, finally got back to her 2-year-old form winning the Intercontinental last out. That was a strange race. They gave the filly her head, and she went really hard through the middle stages before slowing to a relative crawl in the final furlong. She moves way up on a wet course, and I think she’ll be a major underlay facing far stronger foes Saturday. Got Stormy, on her best 2019 day, might have been an eyelash behind Uni’s best. Yes, she ran second by a neck to River Boyne in the Kilroe Mile at Sant Anita in March, but at the peak of her powers, she smashes River Boyne. In her only start since then, she finished fourth in the Grade 3 Beaugay at Belmont on June 3. It’s hard for me to envision a sudden revival. Could Beau Recall beat Got Stormy or Uni at their best? She could not, but the proposition is they’re not going to be at their best, and the race Beau Recall ran in the 2019 Just a Game, where she tried to reel in Rushing Fall, might be good enough to win. Take a close look at her trip in the Mint Julep, and you will find that Beau Recall literally never had a chance to hit full stride – traffic, traffic, and more traffic from the quarter pole to the wire – and she still turned in the second-fastest final quarter-mile. At anything close to her listed odds, she’s a strong play for me. New York I guess you might wonder if Mean Mary will turn out to be better at 1 1/2 miles than the 1 1/4 miles of the New York, but I’m not sweating it – not with this favorable draw, a 2020 race behind her that most of these horses lack, and a potentially overwhelming pace edge. Call Me Love did flash home encouragingly in the Beaugay, but her Italian form isn’t going to set the world on fire and the guess is she’ll be overbet, while Mean Mary’s stablemate, the talented Mrs. Sippy, might have some rust to shake off in the New York. True North Yorkton quietly showed over the winter that he’s not just a synthetic specialist, and the cut back from seven furlongs to 6 1/2, a distance at which he’s won three of his four starts, definitely helps. He’s only one start into the Graham Motion-trained phase of his career, and since his pace-dueling second April 25, he’s gone to Fair Hill for what looks like a very strong work pattern. Sure, there’s the chance he’ll lose a pace battle with Promises Fulfilled, but at the likely odds, it’s worth taking a chance that things break Yorkton’s way.