I’ll be at Monmouth covering the Haskell. The weather this morning was rainy and it is supposed to rain on and off all day, heavy at times in some areas. Doug O’Neill concedes that he’d rather have a fast track, but he is confident that Nyquist will be able to handle the Monmouth surface. O’Neill likened it to the wet dirt at Santa Anita, and he said Nyquist does well on that sort of wet dirt surface. I was actually on the track yesterday and it definitely had the feel of the beach right next to the water, sort of a hard sand. In any case, the word from the O’Neill camp is that Nyquist could hardly be doing better, and I can attest he looked the absolute peak of health yesterday morning. He was lean, beautifully muscled and was moving very well. He’s staying at the Kelly Breen barn rather than the stakes barn because O’Neill believes the horse is more comfortable in surroundings with other horses, just like his home barn. You can expect Nyquist to shoot out of the one post and not let American Freedom try to steal the  race. My advice – take a long look at the Jim Dandy yesterday when Laoban, a maiden, beat a pretty talented group of horses by lulling them into tracking just a little too long. Do I think Nyquist is the winner? Well, I’ll be rooting for him, but the rest of the field – Sunny Ridge, Awesome Slew, Gun Runner, American Freedom and Exaggerator has a lot of talent. Given a sloppy track I don’t think I’d bet the rent on any horse.

One interesting aside. I understand Keith Desormeaux didn’t make the trip to NJ, and may not have been totally happy with Exaggerator’s last couple of works. He’s a talented horse, loves the slop, but might not be at his peak. For that reason I’m thinking about a Nyquist-Sunny Ridge exacta. Jason Servis is doing well lately, and the horse has a ton of talent based on his competitiveness in Graded races.

Best of luck to all playing today.