SARATOGA SPRINGS – On paper, today’s Grade 2, $150,000 Sanford Stakes is as tough a race to handicap as you’ll ever see at the Old Spa.
The field of nine 2-year-olds going six furlongs features a pair of colts, Wildcat Heir and Run Production, who won first time out by open lengths to earn monster speed figures. Whywhywhy won the Flash Stakes by 5 ½ lengths. Hussar broke his maiden by 5 1/4, then ran second behind the brilliant Zavata in the Grade 3 Tremont. Calder shipper Hear No Evil has won three straight.
Then there’s Posse, from the barn of Steve Asmussen, the winningest trainer in the U.S. The son of Silver Deputy looked like the second coming of More Than Ready winning his debut at Keeneland by 13 ½ lengths, finished third at 3-5 in the Three Chimneys Juvenile at Churchill Downs on Derby day behind Holiday Runner and Zavata – arguably the best 2-year-old filly and colt on the East Coast – then won the Kentucky Breeders’ Cup at Churchill by 3 ½ as the 4-5 chalk.
Off his last start, however, Posse figures to be a price in the Sanford. Favored again at 3-5 in Churchill’s July 7 Bashford Manor, his first start at six furlongs, he went to the front in midstretch but showed no punch in the final furlong to finish second, beaten 3 ½ lengths under Asmussen’s go-to rider, Donnie Meche.
“He took the lead so easy, but when I called on him to finish, he didn’t,” Meche said. “When he’s right, he’ll finish up a lot faster. I knew something was wrong. When they scoped him after the race, they found some mucous.”
Since then, Posse has trained like a bear. “He worked very well over this track Monday,” Meche said (a half-mile in company with Arkansas Derby winner Private Emblem, a workout that does not appear in the Racing Form pp’s). “He got a good hold of the track. He’s comfortable here.”
Meche said that next to Cashier’s Dream, the late filly who won last summer’s Grade 1 Spinaway here by six lengths, Posse is the best 2-year-old he’s ever ridden.
“I expect him to run his race this time, a lot better than the last time,” said Meche. “When he’s on his game, I’m not scared to run against anybody.”
Play Posse to win and place, and use him on top in exotics over Wildcat Heir, Whywhywhy, Hear No Evil, Hussar and Run Production.