This season’s Kentucky Derby picture is as challenging to complete as a jigsaw puzzle missing a handful of pieces. Accurately predicting the outcome of the nation’s most famous horserace never is easy but, this season, the task seems nearly impossible. This first Saturday in May, horseplayers should anticipate confusion, frustration and a heck of a […]
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Below is the early Pick 5 ticket for April 14th, 2018 at Santa Anita Park. As always the ticket is $20 or less. Race 1 Majestic Eagle (#8, 9-5) will be tough to beat at a short price following his recent second to Fibonacci, who returned to win in impressive fashion. Majestic Eagle shortens up to a […]
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Whether or not Justify wins the Kentucky Derby to become the first horse since Apollo in 1882 to do so without having raced as a 2-year-old, what he already has accomplished is extraordinary. In the span of just 48 days, Justify went from being an unraced maiden to a Grade I winner in last Saturday’s […]
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Saturday, Justify, the most exciting sophomore racehorse in North America, grabbed the 2018 Santa Anita Derby by the throat out of the gate and didn’t let go for 1:49.72. Simultaneously, he intensified his grip on favoritism in the Kentucky Derby. Twice he repelled bids from Bolt d’Oro, a multiple Grade 1 winner and runner-up for […]
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Below is the late Pick 5 ticket for Santa Anita Derby Day, April 7th, 2018 at Santa Anita Park. As always the ticket is $20 or less. Race 8 Sigur Ros (#8, 6-1) finally catches a field with no speed after being used up in pace duels in his last two starts. He was 6 wide every […]
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With two Saturdays and just five remaining races on the Road to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve, there’s not much ‘prep’ time left for the nation’s elite 3-year-olds, or horseplayers. I suppose, at this point, we ought to know the major players. However, the Kentucky Derby offers more than just win, place and […]
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Talk about running up the score. Racing on the dirt for the first time, Mendelssohn streaked home in last Saturday’s Group I UAE Derby in Dubai. He kept widening…and widening…and widening. When he reached the finish, no one else was in the same zip code. He won by such a large margin that there is […]
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Below is the late Pick 4 ticket for Florida Derby Day at Gulfstream Park. As always the ticket is $20 or less. Race 11 Stormy Victoria (#3, 4-1) is the longer price of the Christophe Clement pair in here and has a recency edge over stablemate Lull. This mare appears to be better than ever and sports […]
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At Churchill Downs September 16, 2017, the official Road to the 2018 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve began with the Iroquois Stakes—first of 34 official qualifying events. May 5, 2018, following the 144th Run for the Roses, that path dead-ends at the identical finish line. So far, two familiar 2017 leftovers–Bolt d’Oro and McKinzie–continue […]
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Below is the early Pick 5 ticket for March 24th, 2018 at Santa Anita Park. As always the ticket is $20 or less and the sequence is extra intriguing with a carryover coming in. Race 1 Eagle Screams (#2, 5-1) looks poised for victory as he returns to the turf first off the claim for Steve […]
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Is this the year it finally happens? Will this be the year in which the Kentucky Derby winner is someone who did not race as a 2-year-old? We already saw one of the longest streaks in all of sports come to an end last Friday when UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) crushed Virginia […]
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The recent passing of Thunder Gulch sent me scurrying to the bookshelf for a copy of Champions: The Lives, Times, and Past Performances of the 20th Century’s Greatest Thoroughbreds, by editors and writers at Daily Racing Form. The book is a treasure trove of information and includes complete past performance lines of title winners. As […]
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Saturday at Santa Anita going a mile and one-sixteenth, two of the nation’s top-ranked 3-year-olds met in the San Felipe Stakes. Bolt d’Oro, runner-up in 2017 voting for top 2-year-old honors, and McKinzie, an unbeaten Grade 1 winner, put on a show worth of the price of admission. Eyeballing as if one owed the other […]
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Last Saturday’s San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita Park turned out to be a real humdinger. McKinzie, favored at even money in the Grade II affair, and Bolt d’Oro, sent off at 6-5, put on quite a show. They staged a furious battle from the quarter pole all the way to a photo finish. The […]
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Below is the late Pick 4 ticket at Santa Anita Park on ‘Big Cap’ Day, March 10th, 2018. As always the ticket is $20 or less. Race 8 Lexington Grace (#8, 6-1) fell hopelessly out of it in her U.S. debut before closing nicely to be fourth against tougher. She adds blinkers, which should put her […]
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