This seems like a silly exercise. On  really big race days, the pundits absolutely drown you in race analysis. So I’ve decided to handicap the handicappers.

RACE 8

There is mostly agreement on this race. Three horses get picked on top – 1 Palace , 7 Vyjack and 5 Happy My Way. 8 Bakken also gets a lot of suport. Finally there is one sneaky pick for 2 Falling Sky. Palace looks very strong. He’s 10 for 10 in the money at 6F. Falling Sky really has the look of a horse that should have been sprinting all along. He seemed to be a “need to lead” type but in his last he tracked and finished well for the win. I actually think that at 6F he may run his best race. Happy My Way has shown nothing but speed in his last three starts and has won convincingly. He’ll have much more to contend with up front today. Bakken has only started four times but he has definitely impressed. He finished a close second to Palace last out. He wouldn’t be a shock. Vyjack has one win since his Jan 2013 win in the Jerome and that was for $100K OC. So some really strong thoughts on 1 and 5, some hopeful thoughts on 2, 7, and 8.

RACE 9

Nobody seems really sure here.  3 Sweet Whiskey, 5 Southern Honey, 6 Street Story, 7 Sweet Reason, and 9 Tea Time. Even the 10 Red Velvet and 11 Bird Maker have cropped up. Sweet Reason is the ML favorite, and in my world whenever I think a race is chaos, you can count on the favorite winning. Looks like an all race.