Daytona & Mike Smith winning the San Gabriel, can they do it again this weekend? (Charles Pravata)

Given the insanity of the west coast, I decided to only focus on Fairgrounds this weekend.

A little while ago I was eating my lunch in front of the OTB channel. It was just before the 5th race at Aqueduct. I thought the #1 horse, Boggy Creek Dancer, looked really good in the parade, very calm and self assured. The rest of them looked a little too antsy. I wasn’t surprised at BCD’s long odds as I’ve seen him race before, but he did look really good.

In the stretch it looked like the #9, Majestic Melody, really had it, sitting off the pace and coming on with a nice run. Out of nowhere Boggy Creek Dancer flew by the rest of the field to win by a couple of lengths and pay $40.20. I took this as a hopeful sign for the rest of my day!

I’m betting against Grasshopper here. I never bought the hype about him as the Street Sense he placed to in the Travers was not the same Street Sense that won the Derby (as evidenced by his miserable BC performance).

I like Silver Lord and Magna Graduate in that order, I may box them but since they’re both current at 3-1 with 15 minutes to post, I may take a pass. (I just boxed them, wish me luck… Note: Grasshopper just crushed the field by 3 lengths and took me out of the P4, but at least Silver Lord beat Magna Graduate!).

This was the toughest one for me and I went deep on my Pick 4 here, but could have actually gone deeper. Better Talk Now is clearly is a stand out, however he doesn’t do well off a lay off (with the exception of winning the Dixie after bombing in Japan). I’m including him in my P4, but won’t bet him in the race.

I like Daytona but have no idea how he’ll ship or if he’ll like the turf at Fairgrounds. I think he’ll control the pace, which should be good for him. Silverfoot is interesting to me, the 8yo missed last year and in his return race looked game but got caught in traffic, I think he could improve. Another interesting one is Baby First, he ran a nice race last out as his first in North America and will probably improve as well. From what I can tell Inca King is due for a regression after 3 wins and I’m pretty sure since I left him off my P4 that he’ll go wire to wire. (Note: that really doesn’t matter now, does it?) I also think Sterwins is worth a look, I think he’ll like the distance more than French Beret and can probably do the best on what I’m guessing will be a slowish pace.

It’s hard to go against Indian Blessing, but at those odds I’m going to try…although I did I have her singled on one of my loosing P4 tickets. I can’t tell if she wasn’t fond of the Santa Anita surface last out or if it really was a distance issue. The more I think about it the more I lean towards the surface because she handled the distance so beautifully in the BC. It looks to me like High Surf and possibly even Miss Missile could give her some pressure. Let’s say for the sake of argument that it was a distance issue last out, in that case both Proud Spell and Highest Class interest me.

Proud Spell is pretty obvious but you might wonder why I would say Highest Class over Jolie the Cat, particularly when Jolie the Cat beat Highest Class last out. Distance & pace. Highest Class had 2 wins at the distance before cutting back in the Tiffany Lass, also Jolie the Cat had the slow pace all to herself, that won’t the be case today. Even throwing out the unnaturally fast fractions she set at Santa Anita, most of these horses haven’t seen anything like a pace that Indian Blessing can set. That being said, Proud Spell has shown she can do it from off a fast pace and I’m interested to see what Highest Class will do here.

A.K.A, the paceless wonder. It looks like it’s gonna be up to The Darp to set the pace again although he might get some help from Signature Move. This does not bode well for Blackberry Road, Visionaire and even Pyro, but looks great for Z Fortune and possibly Unbridled Vicar.

You can’t go wrong with Curlin as your morning training partner so I’m still convinced Pyro has a shot even if the pace isn’t so hot. Unbridled Vicar is my wise guy play here, I think the slow pace won’t be as negative for him as it will be for some of the others plus I wonder if he could have won his last out at the distance, and that was also a slow pace.

Daytona just won the Fairground Handicap and Sterwins showed in a photo to Jazz Quest, although I boxed Silver Foot and Sterwins. I just can’t deal with 2-1 odds… always the value player! Best of luck to all!