Combine the three oaks races in Delaware, Indiana, and Iowa, and we’d have something. Anyone volunteering for the nonexistent position of national stakes coordinator? We have interest in a pair of Brad Cox charges in Iowa, but Just a Touch will be the wrong price and Hit Show in the Cornhusker just missed making the cut. One might be compelled to play against overbet Impel in the Indiana Oaks, but where, exactly, is Chatalas’s baseline?

Belmont Oaks

Churchill Downs’s closing weekend lies at hand, and it’s Los Alamitos Derby time, which means the coastal boutique meets must be right around the corner. For now, we make do with Louisville and Toronto.

Highlander

One finds all sorts of useful tidbits setting DRF Formulator to lifetime past performances and looking back through the entire career of an older horse like Oceanic.

The 7-year-old wasn’t useless when he began racing in 2020, but after four losses, he ran for a $50,000 maiden-claiming tag, and when that failed, for $30,000.

Here’s the thing with morning lines. If you want to tell habitual bad-line critics (raises hand) to shut up, it’s hardly worth mentioning, that’s fine. If unimportant, why bother doing it? Just ditch the line. Because making a line that radically diverges from the betting market is bad business. When a horse listed at 8-1 pays his backer $7, a novice horseplayer will more likely head for the exit than back to the betting window.

Ohio Derby