In the interest of following my own rules about betting, I'm sitting this one out financially. However, I've still briefly reviewed the contenders to come up with some predictions. As far as I'm concerned, this race is really going to come down to two horses: famous California Chrome and newcomer Arrogate. More after the jump! A tale of two winners...On the surface, California Chrome and Arrogate hardly seem like worthy adversaries. One is a former Triple Crown contender, 2014 Horse of the Year, and currently the world's best racehorse; the other just broke his maiden this summer and has only started in a single graded stakes race. This is Cal's second Breeders' Cup Classic (he came 3rd in 2014's running), and Arro's second graded stakes race. And yet Arrogate's odds are 5-2 to California Chrome's 1-1. How? Perhaps the videos from their last races will be illuminating:
Okay, WOW, right?! So what we've got here is two supremely fast frontrunners, one of whom just set a new track record at Saratoga in a performance reminiscent of American Pharoah. What does this mean for today's race? I think it's beyond fair to expect California Chrome to take the early lead, probably closely followed by Frosted and/or Melatonin. Arrogate will try and angle his way onto the rail pretty quickly though, and I anticipate this to be a Cal-Arro duel well before the stretch. Clearly Arrogate can handle the distance and keeping up a blistering speed (his highest Equibase speed factor is 123; Cal's is 121), so the question is whether Cal will be able to both keep up with him and then out power him in time for the finish line. I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being a truly down to the rail photo finish.
A complicating factor may be Arrogate's post position: he's on the far outside, which is new for him. He prefers to ride the rail, but tonight he'll have to deal with 8 other horses to get where he wants to be. California Chrome, on the other hand, recently won the 2016 San Pasqual Stakes at Santa Anita in the same 4th post position he pulled for the Classic. Now, what about the other horses? Where will they fall? Our other contenders are (in order from low to high post positions, and excluding Cal and Arro): Effinex, Frosted, Keen Ice, Win the Space, Melatonin, and Hoppertunity. Shaman Ghost scratched. Despite their fame during the 2015 season, Frosted and Keen Ice have melted (ha) a bit. Frosted's most recent win was in the 1 1/8th mile Whitney Stakes at Saratoga. It's unclear when his last 10f race was, but he did come 7th in last year's Breeders' Cup Classic. Keen Ice hasn't done much better for himself since his last win in the 2015 Travers Stakes. Keen Ice also raced in last year's Breeders' Cup Classic, coming in 4th place. All his other races since then have been relatively disappointing, and it seems highly unlikely that he will be able to keep up with what is sure to be a very fast pace. Because of this, the horses that prefer closing, like Keen Ice but also Hoppertunity and Win the Space, are going to have a tough time today. That said, whichever horse ends up taking 3rd (assuming that it'll be a toss-up between Cal and Arro for 1st and 2nd) is probably going to be a closer: the frontrunners who fade most likely won't have the energy reserves to bring them to the head of the pack behind the two duelers. So, in my view, that means goodbye to Melatonin and War Story (although if I had to pick between the two of them, I'd choose Melatonin since his recent record at this distance is better than War Story's). My gut feeling in choosing between Hoppertunity and Win the Space is to go with Win the Space. He's a beautiful horse, and he did mount a pretty good comeback in the Awesome Again. But he's a pretty deep closer compared to Hoppertunity, who is more of a stalker than [deep] closer. So in theory, Hoppertunity is the better, more logical choice even if his conformation (to me) is lacking. Good thing I'm not actually putting money on this race, I suppose, since this will be yet another opportunity to see whether going with my gut versus logic will pay. Do you think California Chrome has any worthy competitors today? Can Arrogate handle the challenge of the far outside post position? Who's the real wild card here? Post is at 8:35pm EST, so we'll find out in several more hours whether Cal will finish out 2016 shining! ~Gallant Vixen
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About Gallant VixenNew lawyer with a degree in equine studies and a penchant for handicapping. Archives
May 2020
Categories
All
|