Santa Anita 5th Race – Post: 3:00 PT. Degree of confidence: B+
Top Selection: 2-Burning Rubber
Backups: 9-Irish Rebel
Forecast: Those that have had a prior outing n this maiden optional claiming sprint for juveniles haven’t shown much, so let’s go with a fresh face as our top pick. Burning Rubber has done some good work in the a.m. without being asked for anything close to his best, so we suspect he will turn up a hot item on the tote. The S. McCarthy-trained son of Flameway brought $130,000 at the OBS Spring Sale after a nice :10 1/5 breeze in the preview session and has trained steadily and easily in recent weeks for his debut. The barn’s “go-to” rider K. Frey takes the call, so at 3-1 on the morning line he’s worth a gamble in the win pool and in the various rolling exotics. Irish Rebel has worked quickly for his debut and is worth tossing in somewhere on your ticket as well.
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Santa Anita – 8th race - Post: 4:30 PT. Degree of confidence: A-
Top Selection: 8-Margarita Girl
Backups: none.
Forecast: Margarita Girl tipped her hand with an outstanding runner-up effort in her debut at Del Mar and really won’t have to improve much at all to graduate today in this extended turf sprint for maiden juvenile fillies. She finished second to Non Compliant in that main track affair and was flattered with the B. Baffert-trained filly returned to win a graded stakes while clearly franking the form. There’s nobody even remotely that good in this field, so the M. Glatt-trained daughter of Twirling Candy should be a short price to handle this assignment as an obvious rolling exotic single.
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