Breeders’ Cup: Saturday Highlights
We’ll look at the Classic in detail tomorrow, but today I want to look at three of the higher profile races to be run on Saturday – the Sprint, Juvenile, and Turf.
Sprint
This is perhaps he most wide open race on the whole card – no horse seems to want to make a claim to this one. Five horses in the nine horse field are 6/1 or lower. The current second choice, at 7/2, seems like he could be the favorite by post time. That’s Midnight Lute, the defending Sprint champion. The public will love his past success, and normally he’d be an attractive horse, but this Bob Baffert trainee has had an odd year. He has run just once, and it was a disaster. He can’t be written off, but he has too many question for my taste. The current favorite, at 3/1, is Street Boss. He makes solid sense here. He’s California based, he has trained well at Santa Anita, his stalking style suits the track well, and he has six wins and two seconds in eight tries this year, including three graded stakes wins. As a Canadian I have to like the Canadian horse, Fatal Bullet, as well. He’s at 6/1, and he presents good value at that price. He has won his last three races over synthetic surfaces, and he has set two track records in that time. My tickets haven’t been firmly established for this race, but they will feature the last two horses mentioned prominently. I’ll also probably look at Cost of Freedom at 4/1. This former claimer has won over Pro-Ride. Not many horses on this whole card can say that.
