Sham

Appropriately named Derby prep race this week. Giacomo got the show money in it a couple years back. None of the horses have gone the distance on Pro-Ride, none are stakes winners, many just graduated from maiden. The big barns like Baffert, Harty, Oneil, McPeek and Mandella send candidates, but all of them seem subpar or not primed. Kettle River, a Harty boy, shows a lot of promise but had a small setback in his training. It's a blemish, but no one comes in without one so I'm gonna use him in my exactas.

Bejarano who can't stop winning hops off Nextdoorneighbor for Setsuko, which doesn't flatter Next but I think this decision is probably based on the Mandella business that he wants to keep, Machowsky who trains wunderkind Caracortado, only has 13 horses in his stable so Bejarano prolly went with the money. I'm gonna play Next atop a lot of tickets because he seems to be moving upward not sputtering like many others in here. He should sit a clean trip and have gas in the last furlong.

And it'd be crazy not to look for some value in here, so I'll play Alfie's Best a little bit and keep Setsuko around to hedge. I'm gonna try to beat Baffert in this spot.


Fifty Bucks
$10 exacta Nextdoorneighbor, Setsuko/Kettle River ($20)
$5 exacta  Nextdoorneighbor, Alfie's Bet/The Program ($10)
$5 trifecta Nextdoorneighbor, Setsuko/Kettle River, Setsuko/Kettle River ($10)
$5 exacta Kettle River/Setsuko, Nextdoorneigbor ($10)