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Friday, May 23, 2008

Belmont Friday

- In the 5th today, Barclay Tagg has Pastel Gal, the 8-5 morning line favorite on the turf in the 5th. The Taggster is 23-9-5-2 for the meeting, some pretty impressive numbers. This filly, by Lemon Drop Kid out of a Theatrical mare, got beat at 2-5 in her last, running second and beating several others in this field. I'm not totally sold on her as the chalk here either; she's never actually won on the grass in her four tries on it. So I'll have a look at the exacta box with Blitzen Too(10-1), for Christophe Clement. The trainer broke out of an 0 for 16 start at Belmont which included seven at odds of 2-1 or less, ouch! Of course, when he finally won, it was with a 6-1 shot, March to Victory. You can't keep a good man down for too long, and Blitzen Too (Thunder Gulch) was a well-bet winner graduating on the grass in her last start, in November. Clement wins at a 22% rate with 180+ layoff horses.

In the 6th, Anxiety moves confidently up in class for trainer Frank Alexander, poised to break into the win column with a record of 8-0-2-3 at Belmont thus far. In her last, this daughter of Aptitude capped a winning rally from far back with a final quarter of 23 2/5; and that with Cornelio Velasquez wrapping her up in the final yards. Second place finisher House Quest won her next race by eight, and 4th place finisher Battingstar came back to win as well. Pace to set up her late run is a concern here however, and Sneaky Girl is an interesting entry from David Jacobson. He claimed her out of her last, a sharp six furlong sprint effort on the dirt, switches her to grass and engages Kent Desormeaux for the ride. She showed some good speed on this surface last year, and could get a big jump on this field.

7 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice hit. What's your ROI now?

BitPlayer

Anonymous said...

Nice score in the exacta, Alan. Will this make you forget PLEASANT HOME? Sorry, couldn't resist. Nice job, bud...

Anonymous said...

Spoke prematurely. Nice hitS.

BitPlayer

Anonymous said...

ReggieHammond says oh my I must keep quiet for awhile. You got a couple of horses home without any jockey excuses. Did you hit your head on the night table last night to come up with those picks or is it those steroids you found in the closet. Wow I gotta shut up now for the weekend as a present from me to you.

Alan Mann said...

>>Nice hit. What's your ROI now?

Thanks! I think it's something like 31.90. Does that mean I can start charging money now? :)

>>Will this make you forget PLEASANT HOME?

It's Artie Schiller that I can't forget about. :-/

>>Did you hit your head on the night table last night to come up with those picks or is it those steroids you found in the closet.

We all get lucky once in a while. Now go and have yourself a nice weekend.

Anonymous said...

Hats off to Alan! Three picks that ran, two winners, one second, a juicy exacta. Very nice work!

Brooklyn Backstretch said...

I just say the Pastel Gal reply...seems like the race was hers if she hadn't bobbled on the backstretch.