Mark Cramer
C & X Report

Just to repeat, folks, the horse I like the most on the Friday card is Junia Tepzia.

Now, for the first analysis of the Saturday card. Order of mention of horses represents my order of preference. Please note that it is impossible to comment on every horse. Also note that it's your job to sift through my comments and extract what you believe is truly objective.

SPRINT

The news from England is that Godolphin's trainer thinks his best chance is with GAYEGO in the Sprint. The experts are concerned about a pace duel in that race, but FATAL BULLET, with 9 wins of 11 on the synth is capable of laying just behind and outside of Zensational and is not one to throw in the towel. If you do follow the speed duel theory and believe that SA's lack of wire-to-wire winners this season will trickle up into the Grade I ranks, then you also have to consider the 15-1 horse CAPT CANDYMAN CAN, who got very close to the uncatchable Fatal Bullet. Zensational has been odds on in four of his wins, the last two in 5-horse fields. I would play against this favorite. How about the above three for an exacta, excluding Zensational?

CLASSIC

The word Thursday after RIP VAN WINKLE's gallop is that the year-long foot-problem saga is a thing of the past, and maybe the future, but not the present. RIP is all class. My other horse in the Classic continues to be EINSTEIN. He has a bullet, is 1 for 1 this course/surface/distance, and if you exclude his two failures in the Arlington Million at a track he obviously does not like, he's there every time. Beyond these two, there race is deep in contention and you can make an argument for lots of the others.

JUVENILE TURF

I think I have my best argument here. I suspect that they've gone to the well too often with Buzzword and his future is next year. I prefer the horse that beat him in the Prix Lagardere at 7f, POUNCED. The final time in that race on a track where the rails were out wide, was 119.2. The next day, Arc day, the rails were back in and they ran on the best part of the track. In the Prix de la Foret, the exact same 7f distance, you had a final time of 119.1, with none other than Goldlikova finishing a close third behind two fine Aga Khan sprinters. In other words, the 2yo race of POUNCED was just as fast as the 3yos the next day. Finishing behind pounced was Beethoven, who came back to win his next race. Also behind POUNCED was Dick Turpin, who entered that race off 4 straight wins.

O'Brien's Viscount Nelson has simply not faced an equal calibre of field.

TURF SPRINT

Last year at the very last moment on Saturday morn, I sent in a post where I had discovered DESERT CODE. Too bad I hadn't made that discover for the earlier posts. DC is coming into this race with a remarkable pattern match compared to the way he led into last year's Turf Sprint win at high odds. The pattern match is: 7th this year and last year in Morvich, to same horse, California Flag. In both cases, DC had a win in the Spring followed by a few losses. DC is 5 for 9 over this course with no seconds or thirds, thus explaining why he either dominates or flops. The diff this year is that California flag only faces one or possibly two speedsters where as last year's race was speed-heavy.

Now DC is not necessarily in my order of preference. Of my 8 contenders, I have decided to mention two at this point. The second one is DELTA STORM (10-1) who finished only a nk behind the race fave who is 7/2, so I like the odds differential plus Mike Mitchell factor. This guy is one of the very best and most under-publicized trainers in the USA, and thus he's profitable in most specialty categories. DS was steadied when third to Gayego.

As usual I have not fully digested this race, so hold on for more tomorrow.

That's enough for now. As you can see, for the Turf-Sprint I am sharing with you a process rather than a final analysis.

DIRT MILE

The 6/5 favorite is the only horse I come up with.

More tomorrow.

Mark