Gulf 1/6
 

Race 9 Hal's Hope

I don't know about Hal, but my hope is that Greeley gets a solid pace to run at. My picks:

9. Sir Greeley
3. Sweetnorthern
6. Strong Contender
5. Chatain

I don't know if this is good news or bad news for you but I like the same horses. :p 9/3/5/6

Chatain is interesting.

I think Sweetnorthern is gonna be tough to beat in here but I think there's a lot to like about Greeley. G-3 winner in a one turn mile at Belmont, 3rd start, series of nice works, dropping 16 lbs off from his last race. Maybe he'll come through and make us look good. Lightly raced Chatain looks like he could improve with all the nice works since the layoff.

I LOVE Chatain . . . he reminds me of Discreet Cat. . . I'm using him and SNS in my pk4 or 3

I don't think there's going to be much pace in this race and Sir Greeley has been running differently since he came back off his 06 layoff. In previous races he ran much closer to the pace. The Westchester looks like he was a closer and he did close (thankfully), but the front runner Love of Money ran a hole in the wind for 6 furlongs, then he tired.

Chatain looks like he could be a good horse but this is a huge jump up in class. He beat nothing at the Meadowlands besides 4 other horses. But he ran well herel last winter when he was only 2 1/4 lengths behind Showing Up. As we know Showing Up has gone on to win a graded stakes races on both turf and dirt. Sweetnorthernsaint showed he was very fast sprinting last January and was able to stretch out. His last two races look like public workouts with only 2 other overmatched horse in each of his two wins this past fall. He's a good horse but I think I might take a shot at knocking him off here.
Strong Contender is 3 for 4 going 1 turn and looks like he has the talent to be a top 4 year old this year. Bigger prizes are the goal for this horse and this is just the starting point.

An overlay in this race could be Yes Yes Yes. He has speed and it looks like the early lead could be there for the taking. The key to the race will be the first quarter. If Yes Yes Yes can set an easy first quarter he might be tough to run down. He looks like a good bet if he's around his M/L odds.

This looks like it will be a great race to watch and bet on.