Annoyingly I started to come down with a nasty head cold yesterday, sitting at work sniffling and sneezing, I knew it meant I was gonna be scratched from any action this weekend. Normally Friday night is handicapping night at GbG manor, but not last night. I’ve been passed out in front of the idiot box all day today, occasionally waking up to catch a race at Belmont.

As luck would have it, I woke up just in time to catch the Champagne Stakes… War Pass ($11.20) took the field wire to wire winning by about a length and half over a closing Pyro ($19.60) while 35-1 long shot Z Humor ($10.80) held on well for show after stalking War Pass the whole way! As Tom Durkin put it “Majestic Warrior and Ready’s Image nowhere today”. Actually, the replay is on now, Pyro came from last to place… nice! Good for Nick Zito… and those payouts were reminiscent of Saratoga!

The Champagne is somewhat sentimental for me, last year the second time I went to the track ever was it was the running of the Champagne. Back then Swifty & I couldn’t tell a prep race from a claiming race. Later on during the Derby Trail whenever the Champagne was mentioned we would laugh knowing that A) we were there and B) we had no idea what we were witnessing. Our trouble line would have been, Stumbled, greenly.

No Biz and Scat Daddy were the two favs, both at very low prices. I liked No Biz but went with a longer shot Pegasus Wind across the board. Pegasus Wind did show, I wonder what happened to him, I’ll have to do a little research. But No Biz has remained one of my favs, “a big old love bug in the barn” as quoted by one of Barclay Tagg’s team in a New York Times article prior the derby.

He’s running in the Jamaica today going for his third win on turf, and I will be rooting for him. I haven’t looked at the past performances, but he’s definitely got some competition in Shamdinan and Red Giant… and possibly others. Go No Biz!