You have to look really hard for little wrinkles of late pace propensity in this crowd. There's just no obvious late runner to complement the speed matchup. Not that I'm expecting the race to fall apart outright—there's just too much talent here for that.
The best late pace projection from TFUS belongs to the
, and by some margin. It's the most accomplished with the least races, possessed the brightest prospects of its cohort, and figures to come back strong as can be here.
But betting against Jackie's Warrior in this sprint? It's not like there's much time to wear him down, and it won't be easy to pass him. But with a short enough price on
and decent second choice odds on
, that's the pick if I have to make one.
I wonder if
gets a smidgen overbet based on its victory over the favorite two back, and too much stock in a sloppy track excuse last time out. I'd want to see an odds gap to fourth choice on this one.
I don't think the
is quite as dismissible as 30-1 ML suggests, but only in the sense that it could round out the tri or super as well as any. It has those wrinkles of late pace interest, and ran fairly good figures in its early races compared with these.
I literally overlooked
at first. I wonder if others will too. Among the biggest figs in second and third races, albeit in shallower waters, and then muddied by the Haskell. Hard to see this one beating both the favorites, but a deserving third choice.
I wanted to make a case for the
as the least early pace determined, but four of these have greater late pace figs. Last performance maybe propelled by first time gelding. I kind of prefer the
as a darker horse.
Maybe a
/
/
,
trifecta punch? The
is probably an underlay there as the longest shot, and the
won't pay much at third, but that's kind of how I see the race.
