Weekend GamePlan for Sept. 26, 2020: Picks for Awesome Again, Vosburgh, Ack Ack

Somewhat out of the blue, as we gear up for the heart of the fall racing season (which, unbelievably, includes the Preakness and its attendant Pimlico stakes), it has been an award-winning week for trainer-speak. I’ve lost count of the number of “he couldn’t be doing betters” and “I couldn’t be happier with hims” that have been attached to major horses working toward autumn targets this week.

Quotations from players in the game that are anodyne at best and obfuscating at worst aren’t going anywhere, but recent advances in publicly accessible video of morning training make an end-around the need for trainer translation. Here’s to the continued expansion of workout-video availability – all of which is pertinent to one of the three Saturday stakes under consideration here.

Awesome Again

If post-time odds derived from workouts, Improbable would be heavily favored over Maximum Security in the Awesome Again Stakes, a five-horse Grade 1 prep for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

All due respect to Bronn, Maximum Security’s workmate on Sept. 14, and Heels Up, the partner on Sept. 21, but those are very limited horses, and in the case of Bronn, Maximum Security worked to best him while pushed hard through the wire and into his gallop-out. This is nothing new. It’s possible that the gulf between workout and race performance has never been wider than with Maximum Security, who remains the futures favorite (where such bets can be placed) for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

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Improbable needs no partner to get all he requires from his drills. It was watching Improbable work late in his 2-year-old season and early in 2019 that I became convinced this was the best dirt-route colt of his generation, a conviction the horse would go on to completely invalidate last year. Improbable since his Whitney win has been working as well as, if not better than ever, switching leads perfectly on cue, striding beautifully, going about his business like he really enjoys participating.

Yes, Improbable got the dream trip of all time in the Whitney, but he made the most of that because at 4 he has evolved into a far more professional racehorse. His mind, not his physical capability, was what betrayed him as a 3-year-old, but the brain appears to have gained considerable ground on the body. Maximum Security got the better figure in the Pacific Classic than Improbable in the Whitney, but the three behind Improbable at Saratoga are several notches tougher than the one behind Maximum Security at Del Mar. I’m not ready to be convinced that Maximum Security is all the way back to the form he showed through the Saudi Cup, and I’ll take Improbable to validate that conviction Saturday.

Vosburgh

Not one, but two former Jason Servis-trained horses mentioned in this space this week, but unlike Maximum Security, who we’ll oppose in the Awesome Again, Firenze Fire is the selection in the Vosburgh.

At one pole, you have Firenze Fire’s response to wet tracks, which he hates. At the other, the way he performs at Belmont Park, which he loves. So Firenze Fire’s Forego, run over as wet a dirt track as you will ever find, is a throw-out as the 5-year-old horse returns to his favorite venue facing a group he can very much handle Saturday.

Firenze Fire never has produced his best race at Saratoga, be it wet or dry, and it’s worth seeing his decent Vanderbilt in that light. Here, he has post 5 in a six-horse field lacking speed (True Timber, who I will be using in exactas, could wind up in front with an alert break), meaning Firenze Fire can get his preferred outside pressing/stalking trip en route to his fifth win at Belmont.

Ack Ack

On their respective best days, Warrior’s Charge and Everfast seem roughly the same horse. Now, to be fair, Warrior’s Charge has many more “best days” than Everfast, a remarkably inconsistent performer much of his career, but Warrior’s Charge is 9-5 on the Ack Ack morning line, Everfast 10-1. Now, I think the line has American Anthem (5-1) and Everfast mixed up, and I’m not expecting 10-1 on Everfast, but he actually has not been the all-over-the-map horse this year we saw at age 3. Racing in blinkers during 2020, Everfast has only run poorly once, in a turf experiment, and his best race of the year, the Blame, came going a one-turn Churchill mile, just like the Ack Ack.