Two at Toga (2022)

[moses]

I struggled a bit with this card. One horse that I really like is Home For Christmas, who runs in race 4...but the inner turf has not been kind to early speed and I'm not sure if she can rate at all. At a 4/1 ML, I probably would have made her my best bet. But instead, I'm looking elsewhere for now.

Wednesday, July 20

Best bet: Race 8 - Mischievous Diane 4/1, Handal/Davis. Ray Handal always seems to bring a few really good horses up to Saratoga. In this case, Mischievous Diane has just looked better with each start. Her only losses came last year as a two year old, one of those in her debut and one to MGSW Kathleen O. She beat older horses last time out, seems to be improving, and is ready for a bigger challenge here.

Best value: Race 2 - Holiday Jazz 5/1, Duggan/Carmouche. Carmouche hasn't won for me yet...but I have a feeling the price on this horse could float up above the 5/1 morning line as I expect a lot of money to come in on Mariah's Fortune (Cox/Saez) and Evoking (Thomas/Irad). I like the addition of blinkers here and with an aggressive ride from Carmouche, I see this horse at least capable of wiring the field here. I'm not particularly crazy about the two favorites. Mariah's Fortune looks like the horse to beat but her best races came around two turns and I'm not sure if she'll like the cutback or not. Evoking enters the race off a 14-month layoff and her big win came in the slop, not to mention her works don't look especially great. Both are worth taking a shot against, imo. Holiday Jazz has shown a little promise in her maiden breaker and finished one length back of Chloe Rose two back (who won a starter allowance race here last week.)

A few other horses that I like at a price are: Rent Control (8/1) in race 3, Callie's Passion (6/1) in race 5, and I'm still interested in Classic Lynne (4/1) who runs in race 9 but curious about why she was scratched by the stewards over the weekend.

Good luck all.