There were some good prices yesterday, including an amazing $18.60 on Pletcher-Velazquez and $24.20 on Bobby Frankel. I guess the public is getting too smart for its own good. My participation was light given the scratch of Better Than Bonds in the 7th. Just as well.

Day two provides a nice $64,715 Pick Six carryover, but despite large fields, there is not a lot that really interests me. The Sanford has only five runners with two that are hopelessly outclassed. Four horses in the Tremont and no Flash? What the hell is going on with 2yo colts in NY? Even so I can't imagine not going three deep in the Sanford if I were playing multi-race exotics. The rest of sequence looks inscrutable so I'll pass on the Pick 6 and Pick 4.

At this point my only play will be Tungsten in the 3rd race. Courtlandt Farms keeps their quality stock with Graham Motion and dumps the untalented horses either through claiming races in the Mid-Atlantic circuit or sends them to Louisiana and Cole Norman (who for them was able to turn Top Commander from claimer to stakes winner). If they wanted to unload him they could have run him yesterday for $35k or, more likely, would have brought him back earlier to run him at Pimlico, Colonial, or Delaware. Tungsten has been targeted for this meet and will be ready to put up a good showing. At the 20-1 morning line he is worth a few bucks.

I wonder if those initial buyer who dropped $425k on Sovereign Duty ever thought their horse would be running over the hurdles after an unsuccessful stint at River Downs. Maybe we will see The Green Monkey steeplechasing in a couple of years.