Weekend Warrior for Saturday, Dec. 1: Picks for Cigar Mile, Hollywood Derby, Claiming Crown Emerald

Saturday is Cigar Mile Day at Aqueduct, meaning it’s the last really big day of major stakes racing in New York for several months. The Grade 1, $750,000 Cigar Mile heads a card that also includes the Grade 2 Remsen, the Grade 2 Demoiselle, and the Grade 3 Go For Wand Stakes, each worth $250,000.

It’s closing weekend of the Del Mar fall meet and the Saturday headliner is the Grade 1, $300,000 Hollywood Derby. Saturday is also opening day of the Gulfstream Park Championship meet with the popular Claiming Crown series of races, led by the $200,000 Jewel.

Cigar Mile

Mendelssohn finished a highly creditable fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic after setting a strong and pressured pace and fighting on gamely before giving in only in the late stages. That effort was almost as good as his performance two starts back in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, in which he finished an excellent third after attending an insanely fast early pace, registering at least a moral victory.

A duplicate of either of those efforts would simply be too much for any of Mendelssohn’s opponents on Saturday to handle. And yet, even though I also think the cutback in distance from 1 1/4 miles might actually suit him, I feel Mendelssohn is a bet-against. This time, anyway. I sense he’s squeezing in one start too many and, after his recent gut-wrenching outings, he would have to be some sort of iron horse to deliver yet another peak performance.

Copper Town, who romped in his last three starts as though he might really be a Grade 1 horse, and Patternrecognition, winner of the Kelso most recently, are logical alternatives to Mendelssohn, but I’m leaning against both. Copper Town may indeed be a freak, but I can’t endorse him in a spot like this off of only one allowance sprint prep after a one-year absence. And Patternrecognition walked on an easy lead when he won the Kelso, and he won’t get that kind of trip again with the speedy Copper Town in the mix.

Sunny Ridge is my play. Sunny Ridge finished second in the Kelso, rallying gamely to be beaten only one length despite being significantly pace compromised, and he gets a more favorable pace setup this time. Sunny Ridge’s ninth-place effort two starts back came in a Woodward that is looking a lot better than it did at the time (third-place finisher Leofric won last week’s Grade 1 Clark). His race wasn’t bad considering he was close to a pace that largely collapsed, and his big score three back in the State Dinner proved he’s fast enough to contend with this field.

Hollywood Derby

Have At It’s near miss to the accomplished River Boyne in last month’s Twilight Derby proved that the East’s 3-year-old turf specialists stack up well to their Western counterparts. For me, that’s key here because Raging Bull was, in my view, clearly the best 3-year-old turf horse in New York this year. And I’m going with him despite what looks on paper like an extremely disappointing fifth behind Have At It in the Hill Prince most recently as the prohibitive favorite.

The Hill Prince was run at a time when the temporary rails on Belmont’s inner turf course had recently come down, and the relatively untouched inside path on that course was absolutely golden. The first four finishers in the Hill Prince all spent most of, if not the entire, race riding that profound inside bias. Raging Bull, meanwhile, never saw the inside. He was two to three to four wide throughout, and in my view, that makes that outing a total throw-out. I expect him to run much more like he did when he won the Saranac and Hall of Fame two and three starts back, and that would be good enough.

Claiming Crown Emerald

I anticipate a strong pace here, especially since the quick Souperfast has to come out firing from the 14 hole with a relatively short run to the first turn. I want a closer, and Aquaphobia is the one.

Aquaphobia turned in a series of races earlier this year that makes him formidable in this spot, most notably his third behind Almanaar (who came back to finish a narrowly beaten second in the Grade 1 Arlington Million) and the highly talented if frustrating Ticonderoga in a very salty allowance race at Belmont the day before the Belmont Stakes, and a subsequent strong second to Ticonderoga at Saratoga.