July 17, 2024
Jeff Siegel’s What You Need to Know
Saratoga
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Saratoga 3rd Race – Post: 2:18 ET. Degree of confidence: B
Top Selection: 6-Practically Summer.
Other Contenders: 1-Vehemente; 4-Trail of Gold.
Forecast: There are lots of question marks in this state-bred juvenile filly dash that offers a field exclusively of first time starters. We’ve seen videos of Practically Summer that have been fairly impressive, so we’ll put her on top at 7/2 on the morning line. The daughter of Practical Joke appears to have her fair share of early speed, though she’s not been asked to show it in the morning, Also, she has displayed a smooth and fluid stride so she should be able to rate, if the situation dictates. Vehemente blew out in :46 flat from the gate here six days ago, and although there is no video of the drill we’ll take the final time at face value and assume this daughter of Vekoma has plenty of ability. Trail of Gold has put together a solid series of drills for a barn that doesn’t usually crank them up, but it wouldn’t be surprising if this $100,000 Solomini filly outruns her morning line of 10-1. Toss her in somewhere.
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Saratoga 7th Race – Post 4:34 ET. Degree of confidence: B+
Top Selection: 10-Theresasilverlinin.
Other Contenders: none.
Forecast: Theresasilverlinin seeks her fourth straight win and gets ideal conditions to extend her streak in this extended sprint for $20,000 starters allowance fillies and mares. First or second in eight of nine career starts and with the beneficiary of the comfortable outside draw, the daughter of Stanford can be effective on the front end or from a stalking position, so jockey L. Saez has the luxury of assessing the pace flow before determining his strategy. Also, she has faster than par numbers for the level so if she runs back to either one of her last two starts she’ll be hard to deny as a win play and rolling exotic single.
