TDN's Steve Sherack and Brian DiDonato will give their best bet of the day for every Friday, Saturday and Sunday card of the Saratoga meet, and bet $50 Win/Place on their selection. In the case of a scratch, an alternate pick will be posted on twitter. The handicapper who has accrued the biggest bankroll through Sept. 4 wins.
SS: Saturday's Result – Cleave sat close to a soft pace and never mounted any kind of rally at 15-1. One last chance to reel in DiDonato! Total: $1,542.50.
Sunday, Race 7, Alw 50000s – I really like Priest N the Rabbi earlier on the card in Race 2 (I promise this isn't the start of some awful joke), but fear that he won't go off at a big enough price (he's 5-1 on the morning line) to get me to the front here. I was also tempted to select Montrachet, a filly I picked on debut in the July 31 Showdown. She certainly merits another look on a fast track after a very disappointing effort in the slop, but will need a late scratch to draw into Race 8. That leaves me with Urban Bourbon. Granted, the 15-1 morning-line seems a bit impossible, but hopefully he still gets overlooked to some degree. The back-classy son of City Zip was good enough to win a maiden special weight on the Gulfstream lawn last December and was also a respectable third in the GIII Dania Beach S. Jan. 2. Granted, his form was pretty dirtied up in his next four starts, including a puzzling 10th in a first-level allowance at Churchill July 1, but Urban Bourbon really bounced back with a big win with blinkers added in a much-needed confidence booster in a $30k seller at Ellis most recently. He draws the rail for the second straight time–he could sit another very similar trip–and is more than capable of landing a big blow versus this bunch with his best effort here. Selection: #1 Urban Bourbon (15-1).
BD: Saturday's Result – Thanks so much to NYRA for sponsoring this contest. Hope everyone enjoyed it and piggy-backed on our good opinions and ignored our bad ones. . . Runway Doll took too much heat early and couldn't see out the seven panels. One more day to hold on. . .Total: $2070.
Sunday, Race 12, Msw – Avendesora showed good speed before fading in a pair of main track races in December at Aqueduct and returns off a long break here while switching surfaces. The paces in both of her races came apart, so it wasn't just a matter of her stopping, and the other speeds finished significantly better in subsequent outings. She doesn't necessarily have a ton of turf in her pedigree, but conditioner Christophe Clement certainly knows what he's doing with a grass horse, to say the least. It's also somewhat interesting that they had her here at Saratoga, then shipped her down to Belmont for her last two works, but have brought her back fo this. Looking for horses coming up from Belmont right at the end of the Saratoga meet when they could just wait for something downstate is a popular and potent angle, and hopefully signals Avendesora's readiness. Selection: #6 Avendesora (8-1).
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