10/13/17
By Shawn Rychling
Super Saturday, the climactic moment for the Belmont Fall Championship Meet is now in our rearview mirror and counting this Saturday, we have only 12 days of racing left to the Belmont season. The meet will wrap up on Sunday, Oct. 29, with Aqueduct opening on Friday, Nov. 3, which is also Day 1 of this year’s Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar.
We just learned this week from Bob Baffert and Juddmonte Farms that Arrogate will be retired following the Breeders’ Cup. I guess we might call him Arrogate the “Former Superhorse” as he has slipped up in his last two races. But he has won 7 of 10 starts in his career including his coming out party in the 2016 Travers when he broke the track record when wiring the field. He went on to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic last year and then the inaugural Pegasus – defeating the formerly unbeatable California Chrome in both races.
As for the Classic favorite, it would have to be Gun Runner at the moment. The Steve Asmussen-trained colt toyed with the fields in the Whitney and Woodward at Saratoga and he looks like the best horse in training right now. Much more to come about this year’s Breeders’ Cup over the next few weeks in this space, including some full-card handicapping sheets for you from the Hot List.
Back to New York where we saw the NY-bred Diversify take the Jockey Club Gold Cup last week for trainer Rick Violette, who has yet to commit the horse to the Breeders’ Cup Classic. One horse that will go to Del Mar is Keen Ice which closed well to be second as the Gold Cup favorite.
We mentioned Aqueduct before and we are anxious to get over there this year as we’ll have racing over the main track the entire meet as the inner dirt was to be replaced with a turf course and that means more 7-furlong and 1-mile races out of the chute and perhaps less bias for inside speed.
Below is our chart for Saturday’s late pick 4 races 7-10. A horse we really like here is Rubilinda in the 200k Pebbles going off as the 9th race. This filly by Frankel likes to wait as long as she can before making a big run. She is making just her fourth start for Chad Brown and this should be a huge test for her against Party Boat.
Late Pick 4 grid for Saturday, Oct. 14:
A B C
Race 7 6, 11 1 5
Race 8 4, 6 x 3
Race 9 2, 4 x 1, 3
Race 10 7 1, 8, 9 3
Don’t forget all the Hot List picks and Belmont analysis is on the Interbets site (for Account Holders Only). Good luck!