Weekend Warrior for Saturday, Oct. 1: Picks for Rodeo Drive, Pilgrim, Chandelier

Preps for the Breeders’ Cup get very serious Saturday, with five Grade 1 races at Santa Anita, the site of this year’s Breeders’ Cup, all of them Win and You’re In events. The headliner is the $300,000 Awesome Again, which features Breeders’ Cup Classic favorite California Chrome. There are also three Grade 1 stakes at Belmont, two of which are Win and You’re In races, led by the $500,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic.

Churchill Downs and Gulfstream also have stakes-filled cards Saturday. Yet despite all the stakes action available, the Warrior had trouble coming up with three races of wide interest to use. Remember, not every important stakes event is a good betting race.

Rodeo Drive Stakes

Southern California’s older female turf division this year has not been up to that circuit’s usual lofty standards, making this race, a direct prep for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, a good spot to try a new face.

Zipessa certainly fits the bill. The Chicago-based filly comes into this in the best form of her career, with a decisive score in the Dr. James Penny Memorial two starts back and a third in the Beverly D. most recently. The Beverly D. wasn’t the fastest race Zipessa has ever run in terms of Beyer Speed Figures, but she was beaten less than two lengths by Sea Calisi, the best distance grass mare in the country right now, and Beverly D. runner-up Al’s Gal has already come back to win the Kentucky Downs Ladies Marathon.

But as good as Zipessa’s effort in the Beverly D. was, it’s also the reason why I’m going against her. Zipessa blew a clear stretch lead that day and now stretches out an additional sixteenth of a mile to a 1 1/4-mile distance that I’m not certain Zipessa wants.

Decked Out is not new to Southern California. It is, after all, her home base. But Decked Out is a new face to this particular division as a 3-year-old meeting older opponents for the first time, and she is my play.

Decked Out also comes into this off the best performance of her career, a near miss in the Del Mar Oaks. She rallied from well off a pace that was not especially fast and was headed only in the last strides by Harmonize. I consider Harmonize to be the third-best 3-year-old grass filly in the country behind Catch a Glimpse and Time and Motion, meaning that while Decked Out is meeting her elders Saturday, she might not really be stepping up in class, considering the elders she is facing. Also, even though this will be Decked Out’s 15th start, she does seem to be improving.

Pilgrim Stakes

Oscar Performance, J. S. Choice, and Frostmourne all come into this, Belmont’s prep for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, off solid maiden victories at Saratoga. Oscar Performance was particularly impressive in running off to a 10 1/4-length score, earning a field-best Beyer of 80. But while I wouldn’t be surprised if any of these three won, they all had easy, perfect trips, and I prefer Oiseau de Guerre.

Oiseau de Guerre might be a maiden, but he ran well enough at Saratoga in his only start to suggest he can win this. He was hammered down to 4-5 in a field of 10, support that went well beyond the fact that, being trained by Chad Brown, he was going to take money regardless.

Anyway, Oiseau de Guerre was caught four wide on the first turn, made a huge, if premature, three-wide run on the far turn, and then seemed to lose focus after opening a big stretch lead. Oiseau de Guerre was caught by a longshot trying turf after being buried on the deadest rail of the year in New York in his debut, but I expect him to improve considerably for that experience.

Chandelier Stakes

American Cleopatra, American Pharoah’s sister, was game in finishing second in the Del Mar Debutante, and with Union Strike, the winner of that race, purposely passing this direct prep for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, American Cleopatra is a major player. However, there is lots of pace in this race, which might compromise American Cleopatra, and I’m going with Zapperkat.

Zapperkat showed a good off-the-pace kick in her decisive, if surprising, debut score at Del Mar, actually earning this field’s best Beyer. She has every right to improve the second time out and should have no trouble stretching out to a route.