Race 5:
Theaterintheround (#2)
Is a half-sister to turf stakes winner Gallery.
Does not meet a particularly strong field for her debut.
DRF Formulator Fact: Chad Brown is 8 for 18 (44 percent) with $5.18 return on investment with New York-breds making their debuts in turf routes in New York over the past five years.
3-1 on ML
Race 6:
Camp Courage (#4)
Was off slowly and squeezed back at the start in his lone U.S. start.
For better or worse, I was in a forgiving mood when handicapping Saturday’s stakes action across the country, willing to forgive what some might consider to be faults in the past performances of my selected horses.
One area of forgiveness applies to horses who raced over the Churchill Downs turf course on Oaks and Derby days, when the grass was rated “good” by the track but appeared to be better described as “yielding” or “soft” given that more than an inch of rain saturated the course leading up to and including those race days.
Santa Anita is tops Saturday from a stakes standpoint with a Grade 1 doubleheader consisting of the Beholder Mile and Shoemaker Mile, worth $400,000 each. But there are noteworthy stakes elsewhere, too, such as the Grade 2, $500,000 Penn Mile, which heads a stakes-packed card at Penn National, and an interesting renewal of the Grade 3, $200,000 Pennine Ridge at Belmont.
Penn Mile
Big Score is very much the horse to beat. But Time to Travel is in this race, which means I am “obligated” to pick him and bet on him.
Belmont | Race 7 | Post Time 4:41 p.m. (ET) | Go to the FREE TimeformUS PPs
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Each week, TimeformUS Chief Figure Maker Craig Milkowski takes a look back at the weekend’s graded stakes and releases the TimeformUS Speed Figures for these races.
Santa Anita
Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita
1/2 133
3/4 128
Fin 129
Top 3: Cupid 129, Follow Me Crev 125, Hard Aces 121
Note: First race for Cupid since the Pennsylvania Derby in September; runner-up was crushed out of gate, big effort in defeat
Rubilinda
Trainer: Chad Brown
Last Race: May 27, 7th
Finish: 1st by 3 1/4
Beyer: 82
In the debut that everyone saw, 3-year-old Frankel filly raced very greenly while outrun early, before finding herself in the stretch and blowing out to an impressive score while apparently having plenty more to give. We’ll see.
Big Handsome
Trainer: Anthony Dutrow
Race 7:
Stella Rose (#7)
Was hindered by an incident on the far turn two back at Aqueduct in a race she otherwise might have won.
Found herself too far off the pace last time after a slow start.
TYFOSHA
Trainer: Doug O’Neill
Last race: Unraced
Finish: Unraced
Beyer: None
This unraced 2-year-old filly outworked impressive May 28 debut winner Saudi Chroma, and is scheduled for her career debut in the second week of June. Tyfosha, by Flatter, might be the goods.
Belmont | Race 8 | Post Time 5:13 p.m. (ET) | Go to the FREE TimeformUS PPs | Not a TimeformUS member? Sign up.
With races 1 and 5 off the turf and an expected heavy favorite in the fourth, let's avoid the early part of an otherwise very strong New York-bred showcase card on Memorial Day at Belmont. The late pick four (races 7-10) is a tough sequence, and there are a couple of interesting prices in there that I want to get into my play.
