With Saratoga opening, NYRA TV Analyst and Handicapper Andy Serling will be ultra busy over the next seven plus weeks, spending countless hours on every card as he tries to pick winners and give his viewers valuable betting advice. But he's not complaining. It's hard to imagine anyone who loves Saratoga more. To talk about the meet, Serling joined the team on this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland. Serling, who has been attending the meet on a regular basis since 1975, was the Green Group Guest of the Week.
When asked if Saratoga will surpass last year's record when $878 million was bet on the meet, Serling said it all depends on the weather. Only 17 races were taken off the turf last year.
“You don't want to sit around and say we're going to do as well or better than we did last year because weather is going to play a major role in that,” Serling said. “But I don't see anything happening that's going to severely negatively affect us. There are weather situations where it rains a decent amount and it's especially a problem if it happens on Saturdays. But other than that, there's a great interest in Saratoga. It remains a place that people just love to go to. So there's no reason not to be optimistic or hopeful that things will go well. But you don't want to get caught up in that because we're geniuses when the weather's good and we're idiots when the weather's bad. Saratoga is a magical place and it seems to continue to do well regardless of what the environment is.”
One race he will be keeping his eye on is the one for the riding title. Irad Ortiz, Jr. was an easy winner last year, but it was his brother, Jose, who won the title at the Belmont spring meet.
“I think it's a very friendly rivalry between Jose and Irad,” he said. “Irad has won four of the last eight and Jose has won three of them. To suggest it's not likely to come down to these two guys is unlikely. Now, this is the first full summer that Jose has been with agent Steve Rushing. He was with Jimmy Riccio before. I wouldn't count Luis Saez out because he's been riding at Churchill and if some of these Churchill trainers do well that he's riding for I think he will have a chance to win it for the second time. Flavien Prat, Joel Rosario are guys who have a chance. I just don't know that they'll get the same kind of mounts to be able to win a jockey title. They might win a lot of stakes. They might win bigger races, but it's tough to go past the two Ortiz brothers.”
As for the trainers, it appears this will be another year where the race comes down to Chad Brown and Todd Pletcher.
“It's going to probably come down to those two guys, Todd and Chad, and it'll probably hinge really on how many good two year olds they have, how many maiden races they win,” Serling said. “Pletcher is capable and we've seen in the past his winning a boatload of maiden races. If he doesn't, he's not going to compete for the title. But the other thing is that one thing that Todd is exceptionally good at is being prepared for off the turf. Todd is usually in there with somebody and it's something that he usually has an advantage on. Chad's strength is often turf racing. So if we get a lot of rain, they come off the turf, it's going to cost Chad.”
Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, NYRABets.com, WinStar Farm, XBTV.com and West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Bill Finley, Randy Moss and Zoe Cadman talked about what was a rocky week for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) and whether or not the way it and the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) has been dealing with those who had positive tests for banned substances is a case of “guilty until proven innocent.” There was a review of last week's big races, including the win by Reincarnate (Good Magic) in the Los Alamitos Derby. The team also focused on the story of jockey 61-year-old Cindy Murphy. Murphy won the July 8 GIII Iowa Oaks aboard Crypto Mo (Mohaymen), which was both her 2,000th career victory and her first-ever win in a graded stakes race.
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