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Weekend Lineup Presented By Monmouth Park: Derby, Oaks Points On The Line In Haskell, CCA Oaks

This first Grade 1 race of the 2020 Saratoga Race Course meeting takes place on July 18 when the Coaching Club American Oaks, which offers 100-40-20-10 Kentucky Oaks qualifying points to the top-four finishers, is contested over nine furlongs at the historic oval. Down the interstate, the 53rd running of the Grade 1 Haskell Stakes on Saturday headlines a stacked Monmouth Park card featuring four additional graded stakes.

The Haskell will be broadcast live Saturday on NBC from 5-6 p.m. ET as part of their Breeders' Cup “Win and You're In” series. The hour-long show will also broadcast the Grade 1 United Nations Stakes.
TVG will be live on site at Monmouth Park this weekend to feature the Haskell. In addition to Monmouth Park, TVG will be broadcasting racing from Gulfstream Park, Laurel Park, Woodbine and more all weekend.

Saratoga Live, the critically-acclaimed and award-winning television program, kicks off its fifth season broadcasting the 40-day summer meet at iconic Saratoga Race Course. Saratoga Live will feature more than 210 hours of live programming from Saratoga, which runs through September 7. Saratoga Live will appear each racing day beginning at 1 p.m. ET on FOX Sports and MSG Networks and offer full-card coverage of the Saratoga meet. In addition to daily national coverage on FS2, Saratoga Live will air on FS1 for a total of 31 hours.

Saturday July 18

2:18 p.m.—$150,000 Grade 2 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes at Saratoga Race Course on FS1

Trainer Christophe Clement will saddle a formidable pair of graded stakes winners in Decorated Invader and Gufo, both of who will carry winning streaks into the 36th running of the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame over the inner turf. Owned by West Point Thoroughbreds, William Freeman, William Sandbrook and Cheryl Manning, Decorated Invader arrives at the 1 1/8-mile event for 3-year-olds off a victory in the Grade 2 Pennine Ridge on June 20 at Belmont Park, where the son of Declaration of War tracked the pace while saving ground along the rail, made his move at the quarter pole and drew off to a 4 ¾-length triumph.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/SAR071820USA3-EQB.html

4:06 p.m.—$150,000 Grade 3 Matchmaker Stakes at Monmouth Park on TVG

Trainer Chad Brown is well represented with three entries in the Matchmaker, including morning-line choice Beautiful Lover. The daughter or Arch won the 2019 Boiling Springs at Monmouth last May but has failed to find the winner's circle in four starts since. Beautiful Lover will be joined in the starting gate by stablemates Nay Lady Nay (IRE) and Tapit Today.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/MTH071820USA9-EQB.html

4:40 p.m.—$300,000 Grade 3 Monmouth Cup Stakes at Monmouth Park on TVG

Grade 1 winner-Math Wizard seeks his first victory since taking the Pennsylvania Derby last September when he faces nine challengers in the 1 1/8-miles Monmouth Cup. Math Wizard has been off the board in his two starts this season after ending his 2019 campaign with a fifth-place run in the Breeders' Cup Classic. Among those Math Wizard will face is multiple graded stakes-placed Bal Harbour, unraced since finishing sixth in the 2019 Grade 1 Cigar Mile, and Grade 3 winner Global Campaign.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/MTH071820USA10-EQB.html

4:55 p.m.—$125,000 Grade 3 Trillium Stakes at Woodbine on TVG

The Trillium Stakes has attracted eight starters, including 2019 multiple Sovereign Award finalist Amalfi Coast, graded stakes-placed Painting, who rallied impressively to finish second to Jean Elizabeth in the Grade 3 Whimsical, and Live Oak Plantation's multiple stakes winner Souper Escape.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/WO071820CAN8-EQB.html

5:10 p.m.—$300,000 Grade 1 United Nations Stakes at Monmouth Park on NBC

Less than a week after finishing sixth in the Grade 2 Elkhorn Stakes at Keeneland, Grade 1-winner Arklow will wheel back against eight rivals in the United Nations Stakes. Arklow captured the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic last October but is winless in four starts since. Breaking next to Arklow out of post No. 2 will be Standard Deviation, winner of the Jersey Derby at Monmouth last August.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/MTH071820USA11-EQB.html

5:28 p.m.—$175,000 Grade 2 Royal North Stakes at Woodbine on TVG

Summer Sunday, one of two Stuart Simon trainees in the field, seeks to defend her crown in Saturday's Royal North Stakes. Bred in Ontario by Trinity West Stables and owned by Anne and William Scott, five-year-old Summer Sunday will look to make a return to the winner's circle for the first time since her victory in the Royal North last July. A daughter of Silent Name (JPN) out of the Millennium Allstar mare Dancing Allstar, Summer Sunday heads into the Royal North off a third-place effort in the Grade 3 Whimsical on June 21 at Woodbine.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/WO071820CAN9-EQB.html

5:46 p.m.—$1,000,000 Grade 1 Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park on NBC

Multiple graded stakes-winner Authentic was installed as the 4-5 morning line favorite to extend Bob Baffert's record for victories in the Haskell Stakes, Monmouth Park's showcase race. Unbeaten in his first three career starts, Authentic was second to Honor A.P. in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby in his last start on June 6. Baffert has won the Haskell a record eight times. Dr Post, trained by Todd Pletcher, was made the 5-2 second choice. In his most recent start, Dr Post finished second in the Belmont Stakes on July 20.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/MTH071820USA12-EQB.html

6:16 p.m.—$350,000 Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga Race Course on FS1

Multiple graded-stakes winner Tonalist's Shape, who boasts six wins from seven starts, returns to action in Saturday's Coaching Club American Oaks, a nine-furlong test for sophomore fillies. Trained by Saffie Joseph, Jr., Tonalist's Shape reeled off four consecutive wins including victories in the Hut Hut, Grade 3 Forward Gal and Grade 2 Davona Dale at Gulfstream Park. Following an off-the-board effort in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Oaks, she returned to winning form last out with a commanding 3 3/4-length score in the Hollywood Wildcat at 1 1/16-miles on May 15 at Gulfstream.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/SAR071820USA10-EQB.html

6:51 p.m.—$250,000 Grade 3 Molly Pitcher Stakes at Monmouth Park on TVG

She's a Julie, winner of the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes on June 13, looms the one to beat when she breaks from the rail in the 1 1/16-miles Molly Pitcher Stakes. Trained by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen, She's a Julie snapped a five-race losing skid when she prevailed in the Ogden Phipps. The daughter of Elusive Quality previously won the 2019 edition of the Grade 1 La Troienne Stakes.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/MTH071820USA14-EQB.html

Sunday July 19

5:46 p.m.—$150,000 Grade 2 Lake Placid Stakes at Saratoga Race Course on FS1

Stakes-winner Speaktomeofsummer will look to stretch out in distance in taking another crack against graded stakes company as part of a six-horse field of sophomore fillies in the Lake Placid. Off a seven-month layoff, the Summer Front filly made her 3-year-old bow on June 20, running fourth in the Grade 3 Wonder Again at Belmont Park. Owned by Waterford Stable, Speaktomeofsummer broke her maiden at second asking, posting a three-length score in a one-mile contest in her turf debut in September at Monmouth Park, and capped her juvenile campaign with a two-length triumph in her stakes debut in the one-mile Chelsey Flower over good turf in November at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/SAR071920USA9-EQB.html

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This Side Up: Haskell Sets Derby Compass as East Meets West

Guys. Come on. What was the one thing we were told, right from the outset? Wash your hands. Obsessively, wash your hands. Yet here’s our most accomplished trainer, explaining that his assistant transferred a trace from a medicinal patch on his own back to the tongue-ties of their two most charismatic sophomores.

Somebody seems to have been no more vigilant in the jocks’ room at Los Alamitos, creating a fresh headache for Bob Baffert in the postponement of a barn debut, scheduled for Del Mar this weekend, for Maximum Security (New Year’s Day). This year Baffert has endured setbacks proportional to his success, which is saying plenty, and it’s unfortunate that the mainstream media has taken the opportunity to conflate those twin menaces to the reputation of our sport, injuries and drugs.

The more responsible coverage has at least kept in perspective the relatively innocuous contamination of Charlatan (Speightstown) and Gamine (Into Mischief). But some have been unable to resist the narrative combining this episode with the peculiar treatment of Justify (Scat Daddy), after his positive test on the way to a Triple Crown; the welfare traumas, last year, of Baffert’s otherwise paradisal home track, Santa Anita; and the federal indictments this spring against trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro, among others.

It was Servis, of course, who supervised the career of Maximum Security until that scandal broke–in a fashion that always seemed unorthodox, even before the lurid doubts introduced by his arrest. How long ago it seems, now, since that sultry evening when, after a prolonged delay for the heat wave, Maximum Security denied Baffert’s Mucho Gusto (Mucho Macho Man) in the GI TVG.com Haskell. One way or another it has been a wild ride all the way through, for this horse, and this Del Mar fiasco will barely warrant a footnote in his biography.

Much like Maximum Security, I’m sure all of us must be sharing the same yearning: for what we now know to value as that most extraordinary of privileges, a regular day at the races. As it is, Mike Smith has been locked out of Saratoga (know the feeling, brother) by taking the mount on Authentic (Into Mischief) in a still more surreal Haskell this time round.

Smith will be hoping that the horse makes that a price worth paying, albeit the most obvious value of this race–in pitching together the respective runners-up from the GI Runhappy Santa Anita Derby and GI Belmont S. (presented by NYRA Bets)–is to integrate the form of the crop’s standout colt on either coast.

In his own right, Authentic (what a name for a “Sham” winner!) is certainly at something of a crossroads. The way he goes about his task should settle the questions left open by his first defeat, where he broke a step slow; was kept fairly wide; and for the first time, never made the lead at any call. In view of his idle month, at the height of the lockdown, Authentic could yet prove that he wasn’t simply revealing the kind of low fuel reserves we’ve seen in other brilliantly fast sons of his sire. Don’t forget how green he looked in his first races, almost colliding with the rail even as he cruised clear on his stakes debut. He remains perfectly entitled to turn one small step back into two big steps forward.

Many of us, of course, are hoping that the single most pertinent factor in his defeat will simply turn out to have been the presence, in Honor A.P. (Honor Code), of the classiest colt of the crop. For now, Authentic’s connections appear to be keeping the faith. That looks significant, as the Derby trail extends so much deeper into the calendar this year that his perseverance is already costing key opportunities round a single turn. (He’s hardly going to be bounced out for the GI Allen Jerkens now.) With his future at Spendthrift in mind, however, maybe the idea is just to get his Grade I nailed in the Haskell, and then see how his world looks after that.

If this field lacks depth, it does set up a potential pincer movement on the favorite: the seasoned Ny Traffic (Cross Traffic) can be counted on to press pretty unsparingly, having seen off all bar the stellar Maxfield (Street Sense) last time, while progressive Dr Post (Quality Road) will punish any reckless competition up front by drawing on his stamina.

After all, one thing that won’t change in a September Derby is the perennial equilibrium challenge between the speed horses and the closers. Will that be tilted one way or another, by more mature horses? You could argue that the speed will hold up better, driven by stronger horses. On the other hand, it could be that the speed in May tends to be a function of a more general precocity. Perhaps a 20-runner stampede through 10 furlongs will this time favor the traditional Belmont type. So Dr Post could yet enter the equation, even if he can’t quite run down Authentic this time.

So, too, could Mystic Guide (Ghostzapper). Some people sound ready to give up on this guy after he could only manage third in the GIII Peter Pan S. Thursday, but only a very talented horse would have made that kind of dynamic move from where he was mid-race. Runner-up Caracaro (Uncle Mo), who was making his first start in six months and only his third overall, would also merit a rematch with Country Grammer (Tonalist) in the GI Runhappy Travers S. But then if Country Grammer has really hit the Classic seam in what is a copper-bottomed Classic pedigree, nobody should presume the limits of his own progress.

Still plenty of delicious uncertainty, then, for all that we appear to have a standard-bearer on either coast. Just the last two weekends, after all, have volunteered legitimate new forces in Art Collector (Bernardini) and Uncle Chuck (Uncle Mo). Now we’ll finally get the two coasts together, and find out whether one can maintain social distance from the other through the Monmouth stretch. If not, let’s just hope that everyone has remembered to wash their hands.

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Triple Crown News Minute Presented By Kentucky Equine Research: An Authentic Haskell?

While Bob Baffert has won the Grade 1 TVG.com Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J., a record eight times, it's been five years since the Hall of Fame trainer last captured the Jersey Shore track's biggest race, taking the 2015 renewal with Triple Crown winner American Pharoah.

Baffert is represented again this year by Authentic, the multiple graded stakes winning Into Mischief colt who comes out of a second-place finish to Honor A. P. in the G1 Santa Anita Derby on June 6.

Not only does the Haskell carry a $1-million purse, it's a Win and You're In Breeders' Cup Challenge Series race, offers 100-40-20-10 Kentucky Derby qualifying points to the top four finishers, and kicks off the BetMakers Bonanza, a potential $1-million bonus to any horse that wins the Haskell, Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic.

In this latest edition of the Triple Crown News Minute, Ray Paulick and news editor Chelsea Hackbarth review last Saturday's G2 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes win by Art Collector at Keeneland and preview the leading contenders taking on Authentic in the Haskell, including Dr Post, most recently second to division leader Tiz the Law in the G1 Belmont Stakes. The Todd Pletcher trainee will be ridden by “Jersey Joe” Bravo, 13-time leading jockey at Monmouth Park.

Watch the Triple Crown News Minute below:

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Equibase Analysis: Authentic Out For Redemption In Grade 1 Haskell

This year's Grade 1, $1 million TVG.com Haskell Stakes is both a “Road to the Derby” points race and a “Win and You're In” race for the Breeders' Cup Classic, so extra attention is warranted. Seven 3-year-old colts are expected to line up, led by multiple stakes winner Authentic, who suffered the first defeat of his career last month when second in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby after victories in both the Grade 3 Sham Stakes in January and Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes in March.

His biggest opponent appears to be Dr Post, an improving colt who won the Unbridled Stakes in April before a runner-up finish behind division leader Tiz the Law in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes last month. Lebda is another with credentials in the division having won the Miracle Wood Stakes and Private Terms Stakes in February and March, respectively, before a sixth place effort in the Grade 3 Ohio Derby last month.

Ny Traffic enters the race off back-to-back runner-up efforts in similar races in the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby in March and then in the Grade 3 Matt Winn Stakes in May. Ancient Warrior and Jesus' Team are two horses that are trying stakes competition for the first time, while Fame to Famous has finished no better than third in three stakes tries to date and only one on dirt, in which he finished last of 11.

Dr Post appears capable of posting the very mild upset over betting favorite Authentic in this year's TVG.com Haskell Stakes. Two races back in his third career start, Dr Post tried two-turns for the first time in the Unbridled Stakes and won very professionally, earning a career-best 101 Equibase Speed Figure. Stretching out to the distance of the Haskell last month in the Belmont Stakes, Dr Post closed from sixth in the early stages to second but was no match for Tiz the Law. Considering no horse has been a match for Tiz the Law in months, I think that effort is akin to running a winning race. The new career-best 107 figure was significant as well, as it was higher than the 105 and 101 figures Authentic earned in his two most recent starts. While the figures Authentic has earned are on a declining pattern, Dr Post is on an improving pattern and that is why he should win the Haskell.

Ancient Warrior is my longshot play to possibly split the two betting favorites, Authentic and Dr Post, by finishing second, although a huge upset win isn't totally out of the question. Ancient Warrior stretches out to a route for the first time while making his second start after a three month rest. He earned a 92 figure in his prep race and a career-best 100 figure last fall in his first start. Although he has never raced in a stakes, Ancient Warrior has the class in his pedigree to contend here as he is by the sire Constitution, whose first 3-year-olds are on the track this year. Constitution is the sire of three horses which have made their mark in the division at some point since last fall – Independence Hall, Gouverneur Morris and, most importantly, “Road to the Derby” points leader Tiz the Law. Stretching out from six and one-half furlongs to this mile and one-eighth trip while stepping into stakes company for the first time may be a tall order, but considering Jerry Hollendorfer trains Ancient Warrior I have some confidence in the move. Hollendorfer has saddled 13 grade 1 stakes winners to victory in route races over the past five years and he believes the colt has what it takes to run well, I won't argue.

Authentic is trainer Bob Baffert's #1 Kentucky Derby prospect as he is tied for third on the “Road to the Derby” points leaderboard with 100 points. Authentic won the first three starts of his career, earning a career-best 113 figure in the Sham Stakes in January before a 105 figure effort in the San Felipe Stakes. Stretching out to the distance of the Haskell for the Santa Anita Derby last month, Authentic was no match for winner Honor A.P. and regressed again in terms of how fast he ran, to a 101 figure. It does appear as the distances are getting longer, Authentic is not running as fast, and that may be due to his breeding. According to STATS Race Lens, although sire Into Mischief has produced many stakes winners, the record of his sons and daughters at distances of nine to 10 furlongs in stakes on dirt is just four-for-58 in the last five years. It must be noted, however, that record includes two very good three year old colts – Audible (who won the Florida Derby) and Owendale (who won the Ohio Derby).

The rest of the field, with their best Equibase Speed Figures, is Fame to Famous (96), Jesus' Team (106), Lebda (91) and Ny Traffic (99).

Win Contenders:
Dr Post
Ancient Warrior
Authentic

TVG.com Haskell Stakes – Grade 1
Race 12 at Monmouth Park
Saturday, July 18 – Post Time 5:48 PM E.T.
One Mile and One Eighth
Three Years Old
Purse: $1 Million
T.V.: NBC 5 – 6 PM E.T.

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