Seems Too Good To Be True

- Belmont opens tomorrow, and I'll link back to my rant about the fall meeting from last year, rather than repeat myself. But I'll reiterate that come mid-October, I for one not only look forward to the opening of Aqueduct, I earnestly anticipate it.

But we're off to a rousing start this weekend with two excellent Grade 1 stakes races on Saturday; and these are not just excellent because they're Grade 1's. These are excellent Grade 1's...unlike the third Grade 1 on the card, the Garden City Breeders Cup, which doesn't actually have any Grade 1 horses.

The Gazelle has three of them amongst its six starters, including Pine Island, who you know wouldn't be running three weeks after winning the Alabama if she was trained by Todd Pletcher. Also entered is Bushfire, who has won three Grade 1's - the Ashland, Mother Goose, and Acorn; and Wild Fit, who has a first and two seconds at this level. The latter is returning to the site of her tough-luck second in the Juvenile Fillies, and as I've mentioned here many times, she loves one turn. She hasn't had a clean try at one turn this year; I cringe when I look back and see the way she was bet in her two two-turn tries. I love this filly because she's one of the few horses that I've thus far been consistently correct about on this blog (even though I haven't yet made a dime on her).

And as far as the Man O'War goes, it seems as if there's something wrong that there could be such a delicious matchup in store. I mean, something's gotta go wrong, right? Showing Up, the top three-year old grass horse, takes on older horses, and three of them, Relaxed Gesture, Go Deputy, and Cacique, are Grade 1 winners; and I think that the latter ran a fantastic race in the Arlington Million. I don't disagree with Frankel when he said "I thought the post position got him beat." I think that Showing Up is going to have to be very good to beat him. It's something special, that first time that you see the top three-year olds tackle top older horses. It's kinda like seeing your child go out into the world, something which I'll hopefully be experiencing sometime soon.

And we're to believe that we're gonna see Bernardini against Invasor too?