Weekend Warrior for Saturday, Oct. 20: Picks for Raven Run, Empire Classic, California Flag

There is only one graded stakes Saturday, the Grade 2, $250,000 Raven Run at Keeneland, but there are entertaining cards filled with statebred stakes at Belmont Park and Laurel Park. It’s Empire Showcase Day at Belmont, with the $300,000 Empire Classic as the main event, while it’s Maryland Million Day at Laurel, with the $150,000 Maryland Million Classic as the headliner.

Raven Run Stakes

Three members of this overflow field of 3-year-old fillies – Alter Moon, Kelly’s Humor, and Moonshine Memories – come out of stakes at Saratoga, and I think they are the right three horses.

Moonshine Memories, winner of the Grade 1 Chandelier and Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante last year, shipped east for the Prioress Stakes off an allowance win early in the Del Mar meet. She finished a rallying third to the undefeated Dream Tree, a top candidate for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, and narrowly missed the place to Mia Mischief, who is also Breeders’ Cup-bound.

That, however, does not paint the full picture of Moonshine Memories’s Prioress effort. She was steadied out at the start, putting her back to last of eight early, a position completely alien to her as she is almost always right on or with the early pace. Considering the circumstances, Moonshine Memories did very well to finish as close as she did.

Kelly’s Humor and Alter Moon finished a nose apart when third and fourth in the Test Stakes, and like Moonshine Memories in the Prioress, both ran better than it looks on paper.

Kelly’s Humor, who finished a gaining second in the Beaumont Stakes on Keeneland’s main track last spring and seems clearly best as a closer in sprints like this, raced far off the early pace in the Test but on or near a rail that was dead that entire day. Kelly’s Humor did move out in upper stretch while rallying around an opponent, but she then inexplicably went back to the dead rail for the last eighth of a mile.

Alter Moon was making her first start for trainer Chad Brown in the Test after being purchased for $675,000 at the Fasig-Tipton July sale of horses of racing age off a blowout stakes win at Gulfstream. She also had her dalliance with the dead rail. Alter Moon was on it to the top of the stretch while tracking a quick pace before finally moving away from it.

Of these three, I thought Kelly’s Humor ran the best race. I also think she’ll be the highest price of these three on Saturday. You might think then that it would be a no-brainer to go with her. Not so fast. This race is on Keeneland’s main track, which has been kind to runners on or close to the pace all fall meet and has left deep closers like Kelly’s Humor struggling.

With that in mind, I’m going with Alter Moon. She has the kind of style – stalking from close range and pouncing – that can work well in this race and at Keeneland right now, and the extra time she’s spent in the Brown program won’t hurt either.

Empire Classic Handicap

Pat On the Back has done some fine work since switching to the Jeremiah Englehart barn, falling just a nose and a neck shy of winning three straight stakes. He will be a handful Saturday, but I can’t resist Evaluator.

Evaluator is a 3-year-old meeting older opponents, and he isn’t as fast as others here in terms of speed figures. But Evaluator still has lots of room for improvement, and ran very big last time out when a narrowly beaten second in the Albany, closing from well off the pace against the grain of a strongly speed-biased track.

California Flag Handicap

Richard’s Boy, beaten only a head in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, is using this spot as a prep for that race in two weeks. “Prep” is the operative word, however, and that combined with Richard’s Boy’s tendency to lose close decisions leads me to back Tribalist.

My hope is that Tribalist is ridden aggressively out of the gate because he’s quick enough to clear this field early, and that would be a giant edge. Moreover, Tribalist proved he can beat Richard’s Boy in last year’s Green Flash, in which Tribalist had a tough trip and was days the best.