Saratoga Friday Angle

It may have only been a 5 1/2 furlong off-the-turf maiden special weight event for 2-year-olds, but the 5th race at Churchill Downs on June 21st has already gotten quite a bit of my attention.  And for good reason.  And guess what.  It’s about to get even more.

For those of you who are new to LoneSpeed, a quick recap…

A few weeks ago at Del Mar, I competed in their two-day Handicapping Challenge.  I did badly.  But in the last race of Day 1, I made a $500 win bet on a horse named Forloveofcountry who won that turf race at 5-1 odds.  That bet got me back to even for the tournament before I lost it all the next day. Forloveofcountry was a Churchill Downs shipper, and unbeknownst to me at the time, earlier that same day, a horse named Carter Cat broke his maiden at Saratoga. Both Carter at and Forloveofcountry were exiting the same, aforementioned June 21st Churchill Downs race, where they had finished 2nd and 3rd.  So it became an instant key race.

Fast forward to August 11th.  The 4th place finisher from the June 21 race, Johny’s Bobby, was entered in a maiden special weight event at 7 furlongs with morning line odds of 20-1.  I was playing in the Saratoga contests that weekend, and I made a sizable wager on Johny’s Bobby given the strength of that Churchill Downs race.  He ran a huge race to be 2nd, and I cashed nothing.  We can talk about that another time.  But from my perspective, the June 21st Churchill race is even more key now than it was before.

The winner of the June 21st race, Chase Greatness, ran a dull 7th in the Sanford at Saratoga in July 21st.  However, both Chase Greatness and Carter Cat find themselves in the same Saratoga race today.  Race 9.  It’s currently scheduled for the turf, but with rain in the forecast and with both having run well over the slop at Churchill Downs, I think both are very interesting plays today regardless of the surface.  It’s a deep field and you always have to tread lightly with any horses trying something for the first time.  In this case, turf.  But I’ll be playing both of them in some shape or form merely on the basis of the strength of the June 21 race at Churchill Downs.

Update:  Oops.  That sucked.  Neither horse fired.  And now the boyfriend of the mother of my kids has gotten ahold of her phone and is trolling me on social media for the bad advice.