22 fabulous races for Saturday…

Saturday is a prelude to the Breeders’ Cup with several important races for all classes of horse.  And I always have a special place in my heart for the Champagne Stakes at Belmont.  I remember well the excitement of my friends over the win by Seattle Slew in 1977, my first year being into Thoroughbred Racing.  Then in 1978, we got to see Alydar and Affirmed, in one of the few times that Alydar got the best of Affirmed. Affirmed and Alydar, still for me, are the greatest rivalry in our sport – to my experience.

Back in those days, most of the participants had raced many times, as much as 5 or 6 or even more races when they tacked-up for the Champagne…  Not so anymore, today we are lucky to see 2 races in any horses past performance, so the handicapping has to be somewhat more imaginative.  But from this race, we will start to get a picture of some of the better contenders in the division.

Another interesting race for me is the 7th, sprinting on the Turf, with some great names from the past including Pure Sensation and Disco Partner.  But we now have several new faces to this crowd and their might be a change in the guard…

Over at Santa Anita my favorite race might be the City of Hope, Race #9, and to be truthful, I do not expect to see any of these on BC day, but the race comes up very interesting from a handicapping point of view… and that’s always the most interesting for me.

As I said, we have 22 terrific races with plenty of handicapping puzzles and I would offer the opinion there are many great payoffs we can participate in….

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