Explore Maiden Races and Pick Five Strategy at Churchill Downs

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00:00And we'll start in race number seven. This one is a maiden special race, so for horses who have never

00:05won a race yet. And we're going to use a couple in here. The one that I'm going to start out with

00:09is the number five, who will be a little more of a long shot. The name is Restless Renegade.

00:13We know these connections though. This is the trainer Ken McPeak and Brian Hernandez Jr.

00:18These are the same connections of Mystic Dan, Torpedo Anna, who have had an incredible year

00:23this year. So when you look at the number five, Restless Renegade, I think this is a horse who

00:27can really step forward with some racing experience. I thought that debut race was

00:31a little bit better than it looks on paper. So I wanted to throw him in at a bit of a price, Alexa.

00:36We'll use the five, along with a couple other logical horses. Talk to us about some of the

00:40others that we have. Well, I don't know how logical the six is, oh please, at 30 to one,

00:45but I just had to throw this horse in here. So he's only been out one time on the grass

00:50at Horseshoe Indiana, and I watched the replay. And when they were coming around the final turn,

00:55he just bolted and ran for the barns instead of the finish line. So he did not finish the race.

01:01He's a gelding at two. So it makes sense that maybe he's a little bit hard to handle, but he

01:05was moving really well before he bolted out of the race. Passing horses, and he's also by

01:10complexity. He's one of the leading new sires. His horses are outperforming averages by a lot

01:15in almost every category. So to top it all off, it's a really quick workout last week.

01:20We'll also use the number seven, Seavista, five to two. Probably the horse to beat, right? The

01:24seven? Probably my favorite. Makes sense. You know, debuted in August at Saratoga, ran really fast

01:29speed figure for a two-year-old on debut. So I was also in the mud, so we could definitely see

01:34improvement again. So we have the seven who will be a short price, and then we have a couple big

01:38prices in here. Maybe we can get things started with some nice value right off the bat. As we

01:42flip the page to race number eight, this is the second leg of the pick five sequence, and we just

01:47went through this race, Alexa. We went horse by horse. So why don't you give everybody a recap

01:51real quick. We're going to use two horses in this race, right? Yep, we're going to use the favorite

01:56that we talked about, Two Sharp, the number four at two to one odds at $925,000 purchase, who has

02:03never done worse in second and will be tough to beat. And then also the six, Positano Sunset at

02:08ten to one odds. Better long shot in here. He's been running really well against some of the

02:14best in the country and has proven to handle different pace scenarios. Race nine at Churchill

02:19on Saturday was such a challenging allowance race. I mean, you can use so many horses in this race.

02:25We ended up going four deep in here, Alexa, and I thought we could still use like four or five

02:30others and probably not even feel confident in this race. But start us off. I think you're going

02:35to talk a little bit about Colorado Cruiser, right? Colorado Cruiser and the number three attache.

02:40You know, this horse is a fan of Churchill Downs, made seven of his 13 lifetime starts there,

02:46and has won three and hit the board in six out of the seven. Time for me as predicts, he's going to

02:51track the fast pace of the four, the Colorado Cruiser, and ultimately grind them down to win.

02:56He is, however, cross entered at Churchill Downs on Sunday, so he could end up scratching.

03:02And he does lose his typical rider, Rafael Bejarano, to the aforementioned Colorado Cruiser,

03:08the number four. So we will use that horse at ten to one odds, longer price, who has the fastest

03:13early pace rating and has a few new things going for him. First time out with new trainer Doug O'Neill,

03:19first time LASIKs, and they're putting the blinkers on. So I do think they will likely

03:23try to send this horse to the front. He's had a long time off but looks really fit,

03:27has a bunch of bullet work, so I'm hoping he gets the pace advantage and wires the field.

03:31I think we'll actually end up using five total horses in this race because Alexa mentioned the

03:35three, the four, the five. Risk It is a horse who I thought is a little bit of a price play,

03:41some value that you could offer here. And then you get towards the outside. The nine, Band for

03:45Life, is coming off of a really good performance last time out, lost to a runaway winner at Keeneland.

03:51And then the number 11, Agoo, is a horse who's coming off of a second place finish last time out.

03:56I feel like that's like the Adam Sandler goo. That's what he says sometimes when he's having fun.

04:02But as challenging of a race as you will find, I had so much fun handicapping this one. We had to

04:08go five deep in here, three, four, five, nine, and 11 to try to get through race number nine. We flipped

04:16the page to race number 10. Alexa, this is the second of the two graded stakes races in the

04:21sequence. You're going to get us started here with the horse from the inside who we hope to show

04:25some good speed down there. Yeah, we have a little bit of a stronger, skinnier opinion in this race,

04:30so we're only using two horses. My boy Prince, most of his career has been up in Canada, Woodbine,

04:34where he had an incredible three-year-old year, winning three of their big stakes races in a row

04:39this summer and got second in the King's Plate. This was, you know, a lot of this was on synthetic

04:44and then ran an impressive figure out on the grass in the grade one Woodbine mile. Even though the

04:50competition there was just a little too tough for him, still a good performance. He did take a step

04:54back in the grade three at Keeneland, last out, led the whole way, and then just caved at the end, but

05:00ran super, super fast fractions that race. I mean, like, unsustainably fast, so I think if they can

05:06reserve his speed a little bit more, he should be very competitive in here. That's the key,

05:10can they just ration it out a little bit, because he shouldn't have too much other pace pressure in

05:14here. My boy Prince on the ticket for us. Super Logicals, Dashman, and Langios, who gets a big

05:20jockey upgrade, because Flavian Pratt's going to jump aboard for a horse who's had some trouble

05:24trips repeatedly. So if we can get through there, Alexa, we'll come down to race number 11. We'll

05:30be too deep trying to close it out in race number 11. The number three, Girl Math, I think is going

05:35to be a Super Logical player, so you can talk a little bit about the three, and I'll hit on the

05:39seven a bit. Yeah, Girl Math, you know, the favorite likely pace setter in this race, that might not

05:44have a ton of other pace, ran with the same conditions, last out about four weeks ago at

05:50Churchill, went off the favorite, and lost by a neck. So from that, we know that she is capable

05:54of winning this condition at this level. Well, I hope we can start the pick five sequence with a

05:58McPeak Brian Hernandez horse, and then we can finish it with a McPeak Brian Hernandez horse.

06:03That's the number seven, Golden Gamble, who will also be making their second start. So I'll try to

06:08ride on some of those hot connections who have had such a fantastic 2024 with these young horses,

06:14and hopefully they can get the cycle all started again with the young horses here, as this is a

06:20two-year-old race to close it out on Saturday. So let's take a look at the ticket. When we put it

06:24all together, Alex, I think it was 90 bucks that we mapped it out, and we didn't have any singles.

06:29We have a couple races where we could try to beat some of the heavy favorites, but I thought a pretty

06:33nice ticket that we've put together. So, you know, we've done pretty good work the last few weeks,

06:38and even when we haven't hit, we've led some people to some really big prices. So remember,

06:43if you want to play along, Saturday, late pick five, Churchill Downs, race number seven.

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