Saratoga Stack 7.19.23

Our First Wednesday of the meet

In a perfect world, Saratoga would run Thursday thru Monday. Mondays at Saratoga were a good time.

Alas, again in 2023, we’re running Wednesday thru Sunday. It’s still Saratoga so we’re not complaining. Okay, maybe a little.

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A great turnout Sunday for the first Race Players Appreciation Day at Mohegan Sun. Good luck finding a sports book in America doing free drinks, discounted food and giving away $2000 worth of free bets to players firing on Saratoga. That’s what Mohegan did. Brad Bryant and Zak Montoya continue to go above and beyond for the horse player.

Jockey Chantal Sutherland was the star of the show, taking dozens of pictures and talking to fans all day. Can’t wait to be back for the Breeders’ Cup.

Thought we had a shot with our Two Minute Pick of She’s a Nine in the finale, especially when that one broke so well under Kendrick. Faded badly in the lane but - we’ll see if she finds a fast surface in the next start.

Week One of Two Minute Picks finished with an abysmal 4-0-0-0 record.

Carmelina - Sputtered in the lane, MAYBE feeding into the idea the rail was not the place to be on Day 1. It is worth watching and we have a few “horses to watch” off of that card that might give us a better idea.

Striking Speed - Showed nothing and can’t find any excuse on the replay.

Lady Milargo - Lunged when the gates opened and that was that.

She’s a Nine - See above.

You’re going to have these types of stretches - my play outside of these four picks has been poor as well. Thankful for a fresh pile of PPs for Week 2.

We touched on this last week and we’re hit with it front and center again Wednesday - The Linda Rice Machine. A blazing start: 13-5-4-1 (38%) for the red-hot trainer. Ten of her 13 runners have finished in the money.

Until further notice, I’m assuming she’s live in every race she enters. Like handicappers, training barns seem to go hot and cold. Andy Serling has mentioned multiple times how cold the David Jacobson barn has been - he had some stinkers Week One. Linda is the opposite.

Scratch Update - Well…three Linda horses are listed as vet scratches today.

Some thoughts on the first Wednesday card of the meet (a good one) and our Two Minute Pick below.

Race 2: Classic Saratoga. Bill Mott dropper (Cloud Forest), first-off-the-claim for Linda (Happy Bob) and a $850k purchase out of Gun Runner now running in a 40K maiden claimer off slow start/nonfactor in a turf race first out (Memphis). Oh, and that one is owned by WinStar and trained by Todd Pletcher.

Race 3: The aforementioned Linda Rice was very busy claiming horses in Kentucky this spring, and we get one of those here in #2 Proud Foot. Two non-efforts in her career on the green. Sire First Samurai is a 12% turf sprint sire per DRF. And it’s Linda, so. Oh she had another in here too, #7 Boss of All?

Race 5: Over the last three Saratoga meets, trainer Chad Brown is 19-10-2-3 (53%!) in Claiming Races less than $40k. He’s 15-7-3-1 (47%) moving horses down in class. Safe to say #9 Excess Demand will be tough. Might use #3 Run Smitty Run and #7 Rock the Weekend under in some exactas but that would be it. Helped by the scratch of the # 8.

Race 6: Your buzz horse of the day is No. 8 Almond Fudge. You will not be getting that morning line of 8-1. #buzz.

Race 7: See below

Race 8: We were on #2 Gerrymander in our tournament shot a few weeks back….

She looks like the speed in here, has a win at Saratoga and never off the board at a mile.

Race 9: Spread race for me. 3,4,5/6,7,8 but had a hard time landing on one I really liked of the group. Tough bunch.

Race 10: The speed #3 Mz Big Bucks and the closer #1 Red Moon are the two favorites and look like the right two. “A’s” in multis late. #9 Orange Freeze a little slow on paper and the trainer has not been great at Saratoga but would be my backup.

Our Two Minute Pick is in Race 7 - Presented by NYRA Bets. NYRABets.com/Mut200

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Good luck if you’re playing. Comments are open for ideas on the card or what you want to see here as we get into Week 2 at Saratoga.