Saratoga Diary - Aug 5

It's a beautiful day at Saratoga and it seems like all 5 turf races are in no danger of being moved to the grass. Let's see if the nice weather brings a bit more success all around. Anyone that has read this space knows that it was a tough week at the windows. Over at Equidaily it was printed that the top public handicappers had just 19 winners on top. 19 winners is good and since I had only 13 I would have loved to have been that good but it's nothing close to the fantastic results we often see from public handicappers. You'll generally find that there is someone out there getting 25ish winners in a single week. No one keeps up that pace for the whole meet but it is possible for a week. The fact that the best had 19 says to me that it was a tough week all around.

It was especially bad for my spot plays but hope springs eternal and I'm certainly hoping to get on a roll today.

Race #3
$2 exacta box - Mott Entry/Catnandu/Paracaidas =$12

Race #4
$2 exacta box - Calipari/Mesa Vista/Vamos a Ver =$12

$1 Daily Double (3/4)
Mott Entry/Paracaides
Calipari/Mesa Vista/Vamos a Ver =$6

Race #8
$5 WP - Teamgeist =$10

Race #9
$10 W - Echo in Eternity =$10

Although I only hit one paltry exacta last week I did have two of the top three in almost half of my of my wagers so I'm hoping that things kind of fall into place a little more. One trainer I'm going to keep a very close eye on in week 2 is Todd Pletcher. He's actually up to 3 winners now after starting off very slowly but in past meets I've always noted that week 2 is really when Todd gets a foothold if he's going to do well at the meet. He's got a couple of juveniles in today and I like one of them on top in the 4th, I'm also using his one in the 3rd in both the exacta and daily double.

In today's feature I'm actually picking against Cocoa Beach because I think she's a bad bet at 6/5 when we don't really know why she ran so poorly last time. I know you also get Skylighter as part of the entry but I'm not sure how she'll be on the grass in fact I half expect her to come out and wait for a spot on the main track. I'm using Teamgeist in hopes that McPeek really does have a special one on his hands. Her record in Argentina was fantastic and a mile hits her right between the eyes. She could be much better than we know and she's worth a bit of a tilt.

Dr. Smarty Jack has turned into a wise guy selection for a lot of pro's so I'm going with Echo in Eternity for Pletcher.