The big stories today  are the Cigar Mile and California Chrome hits the turf. First lets’ talk about CC, my choice for 3 year old of the year, trying the turf.  On ability, he should simply have no trouble defeating theses seasoned but slower rivals.  Back in the day, Affirmed was an amazing dirt horse and Laz Barrera — his trainer — thought he would try Affirmed on the Turf.  So he gave him a nice workout on the Turf, his opinion was that Affirmed didn’t run evenly over the turf and that was the end of that experiment.  We have all seen CC’s move over the turf and it seemed nice and even to me — but what do I really know!  When they race, he will be moving faster and as you probably know, when Turf horses accelerate it can be pretty fast!  But it’s still a gamble at the ML of 4/5!  Here is the betting mantra, never bet a horse – to accomplish something new as the favorite!  For me, I will watch and enjoy…   But I reiterate – I really like this colt — A LOT!

The Cigar Mile is absolutely one of the best betting races of the season.  It’s competitive with loads of great handicapping questions for us to answer.  Such as can Secret Circle stretch out to 1 mile or  will the BC races hurt these horses that are returning in less than 30 days from their BC races…  I for one, never like to bet a horse that just ran in the BC, especially if the effort got them a 1st or a place finish or a close up finish — one in which the jockey was asking the horse for everything.  So you can see what my point of view is…  But you ask your own questions and use the Power Page as your reference and you should be okay…