Long Live the Queen

Tweet I haven't done much handicapping on here lately, so I figured tonight was as good a time as any as we sharpen up for the Breeders Cup in two weeks. The Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup (G1) is on tap as the feature race tomorrow at Keeneland, with 11 entries going 1 1/8 miles over the turf course, with a purse of $500K. The PP's can be found here or here if you'd like to follow along at home. (I also was a fan of the rock group Queen as a young romping teenager, so this is a good one to jump in on.)

The ML favorite Ariege (#1, 3-1) comes off a solid performance in the Garden City (G1) finishing behind Backseat Rhythm (#8, 7-2) and Pure Clan. Bobby Frankel sends out this three year old filly by Doneraile Court (out of Kostroma*Ire) with Alan Garcia in the irons. Her GC performance came on the heels of three straight wins (two in graded stakes) and she is showing progressing Beyers, and is possible to progress further based on her form cycle. B-Rhythm has my favorite turf jockey, Javier Castellano, up for Patrick Reynolds (Big Brown's original trainer) and is the second choice, even though she defeated the ML favorite by three-quarters of a length in the Garden City. I figure to play these two in the top two spots in a trifecta wheel. The tough part is sorting out the others to play underneath.

I'll start with a longshot Sefroua (#2, 20-1 ML) who I will also put in the two and three holes. Kingmambo's are known to have a "solid grass influence" and she will be on Lasix for the first time. Two nice angles and a nice jockey-trainer combination of Motion-Dominguez puts her in a good slot. I'll also play a $2 win bet on her in case she wins and blows up my tri.

In the third hole, we'll add two more horses to the mix. We'll add My Princess Jess (#11, 9-2 ML), who also was in the GC race finishing a length behind Ariege and less than two behind B-Rhyth. She won the Lake George (G2) at the Spa this summer and has been solid over her career (8-4-3-0) and we'll keep her on the bottom of our tri. Finally, we'll add Magical Fantasy (#6, 8-1 ML), winner of the Del Mar Oaks (G1) last out with Alex solis on board shipping in from the west coast. MF ran mostly across the pond on synthetics in 2007, but has run four times on turf in California with increasing Beyers and six weeks rest.

So here we go, $1 trifecta: 1,8/1,2,8/1,2,6,8,11 cost: $12
and $2 win: 2

Good luck and have a terrific weekend.