Exploring the Form and Challenges of San Diego Stakes

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00:00The number one Midnight Mammoth is a speed horse, Scott.

00:03I will say his last couple of races, he's been pretty impressive.

00:07The two-back race in April didn't really shock me.

00:10It was a small field.

00:11He was able to kind of get the lead and pour it on.

00:13But in this race, he really battled with a nice horse named Skippy Longstocking,

00:17and now he has run back-to-back career best races.

00:21So while I don't necessarily know if Midnight Mammoth gets the race shape

00:24or if he's as good as some of the others in here,

00:26he's in great form, career best form right now.

00:31Yeah, he's hard to knock off of those last two, like you said.

00:33Maybe two-back, a little bit insignificant over a wet-fast surface.

00:37The one thing, though, mile on a 16th, which is today's distance,

00:41and most of his other best races are at a little bit longer.

00:44So maybe it tells that he can handle the sharpness of this race,

00:47although I do think the customers and the ones up front, maybe ahead of them,

00:51or you'll be battling with early, a lot better than the ones he beat two-back.

00:55Agree.

00:55We move to Nysos.

00:57He's run five times in his career.

00:59He's won four of them.

01:01And the only time he lost, he finished second.

01:03And that was in his first start after, I think, a 16-month layoff

01:07where he really needed the race.

01:09And in that race when he ran second, Scott, it was the Churchill Downs.

01:13We've seen that race be a really strong race so far.

01:18The winner, Mindframe, has come back out of that race to win the Stephen Foster.

01:22Bookham Dano and Mulliken were in that race.

01:25They have both come back to run well.

01:28Bookham Dano has beat Mulliken multiple times since then.

01:32Even horses like Banishing, who was in that race, has come back to win.

01:35It was just a strong group.

01:38You don't really have many knocks on Nysos, but as a better,

01:41we got to poke holes in horses like this that will be really short prices.

01:44He's never gone this far.

01:46So he'll have to show us he can get a mile and a 16th, which, you know, talented.

01:51He's very talented.

01:52He should be able to.

01:53But we always want to poke holes in horses that will be a short price.

01:56So he has to prove that he can do this.

01:58Yeah, that's exactly it.

01:59I remember after the Churchill Downs kind of thinking, wow, blanket finishes.

02:03Those usually don't come back great, you know, after it.

02:06Well, I think I got beat three or four times trying to beat those horses,

02:10and I'm finally done.

02:11That said, it's to your point, though, with Nysos.

02:14You know he's the best horse.

02:15You know he's the most likely winner.

02:17But there's enough questions in here.

02:19The distance.

02:20Third off, the layoff should benefit.

02:21But really, it's just the distance and whether he wants to go that far still in his career.

02:26You know, we thought he was a two-turn horse.

02:28I don't know.

02:28He's the clear one to beat, but he's going to be impossible to bet

02:31given any variables that we have mentioned.

02:34Completely agree.

02:35And even one other small thing, with Midnight Mammoth to his inside

02:39and then right to his outside, Miramati, those are both speed horses.

02:42And he could maybe get caught up trying to go a little faster early on

02:46than he would like if he's right next to both of them.

02:48Miramati is a tricky horse, Scott.

02:51I do kind of like him that he's an old-fashioned horse.

02:54You just know what you're going to get from him.

02:55He wants the lead.

02:56If he doesn't get the lead, he doesn't really run very well.

02:59But if he gets the lead and he can clear off, he's really capable of big races.

03:04Now, when he stepped up and faced Graded Stakes Company the last couple times,

03:08he's been a little bit overmatched.

03:09So he's also not run his best races at Del Mar.

03:13Yeah, he's tough for me to get behind because of the reasons you mentioned,

03:17even though we know what we're going to get from him.

03:19And the fact that there's speed, you know, it's very unlikely he's loose on the lead here.

03:23It is interesting, though.

03:25He is the stable mate of NISO, so it's very unlikely that those two,

03:29with experienced jockeys and Flavian Pratt and Juan Hernandez,

03:33are going to duel each other in the defeat.

03:34We move to Express Train.

03:36He's an eight-year-old.

03:37He actually won this race back in 2021.

03:40I have no idea what you and I were doing back in 2021, Scott.

03:43I cannot remember.

03:44He's 0 for his last eight, though, and his last win was in March of 2022.

03:49But I will say, most recently, he ran one of the better races that he's run over the last few years,

03:55and he is a horse who really likes Del Mar.

03:58He's won three times in the past year.

04:00He has.

04:01That's the one thing that I'm going to give him a little bit more of a look for,

04:05because I do think he's clearly slowed down.

04:07Yeah, he ran a solid, well-beaten second to Locke in a race where Locke ran one of the fastest races of the year.

04:14I think his best case is to hope that he still has it at Del Mar and he can pass some horses along the way.

04:19I think winning this race is going to be a tough one for Express Train to do.

04:23Yep, and I think you hit the key.

04:24It feels like he'll be able to pass maybe half the field.

04:26If the race goes fast enough early, then maybe he's one of those horses who you upgrade

04:31and who will benefit most if they come close and late.

04:34Scott, we have our personal favorite type horses, and one of mine that I can't quit is Hall of Fame.

04:39I think there's a bigger race further in there than we've seen from him,

04:43and he's a really interesting horse shipping out here, coming into the McCarthy barn for the first time,

04:48just getting out west.

04:50I know that his foundation over the last year has been pretty solid.

04:54I just don't know if he's ever really beaten that many good, good horses.

04:58He's outfinished Sierra Leone.

05:00He hasn't really won races where there are great horses in there,

05:03but I feel like it's an interesting spot for him here.

05:06What do you think about Hall of Fame?

05:07I feel like I thought this horse was going to be good for far too long,

05:11kind of the opposite of you.

05:12I kind of really don't remember the Asmussen barn loving this $1.4 million

05:17as he went into the Derby prep season a year ago,

05:20and he just hasn't lived up to expectations.

05:22Coming back off a layoff, I thought he was going to be one of the best horses in training.

05:26Hasn't happened.

05:27Maybe Michael McCarthy and the trip out west can make him better.

05:31The race that he's coming out of has actually been pretty strong

05:35with Antiquarian finishing second next out and post-time winning next out.

05:39Tarantino is multiple graded stakes placed.

05:42He wants to be in the mix early, Scott,

05:44but he's not coming into this race off of a couple good races.

05:48No, I think his best chance would be on the lead.

05:50I don't know if he has the same speed as he used to,

05:53and if Naisos and or Miramati want the lead,

05:57he's just not as fast as them.

05:58And so to me, what is Edwin Maldonado going to do?

06:01Well, you can expect him to likely send,

06:03but I don't think he's fast enough to keep up.

06:05From a gambling-based standpoint, we round out the field with Judge Miller.

06:08He's one of the more interesting horses to me just from a betting standpoint

06:12because if he floats up and he's a decent price,

06:15we know he has good races,

06:17but he comes off of a really poor performance, Scott,

06:20where he just never really got into it.

06:22He was bumped at the start and a little bit of traffic.

06:24I think you like this horse a little bit today on Saturday though, right?

06:26I do from a wagering perspective.

06:28I can toss the handshake.

06:29Mark Glatz-Barn did not perform well out in Kentucky during that weekend there,

06:34the closing weekend.

06:35He's got some upside still.

06:37It's a reach.

06:37I'll need the right price,

06:38but I think Judge Miller does have the upside to maybe spring the upset.

06:41So take a look at that.

06:42So take a look at that.

06:42August 2018.

06:43I think Judge Miller does have the right price there that he

07:00took that look at.

07:01You see staff at a구 wall wall.

07:03Make sure you have them find home.

07:06I wish he would the right perform well and try to get with those Yen Masasele.

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