It may not quite fall into the ‘otherworldly’ category, such as that for Woody Stephens’ five consecutive Belmont Stakes wins.  But Bob Baffert’s seven Haskell wins, over 14 years, have to at least qualify as ‘amazing,’ especially so since the West Coast-based trainer rarely even otherwise ventures to the Jersey Shore track.  Interesting postulation by the Monmouth track operator Bob Kulina that Baffert’s “training style fits this race,” given the track’s tendency towards the kind of early speed that the barn is known for.  But Bayern ($11.40) is the only one of the seven other than War Emblem (2002) to win in pure wire-to-wire style. Coil (2011) in fact came from dead last; Point Given (2001) from second-to-last. For the record, the others were Roman Ruler (2005), Lookin at Lucky (2010), and Paynter (2012).

There’s been the usual talk about how the Monmouth track was so speed-favoring on Sunday. Brad Thomas, the track’s excellent analyst, was emphatic about it on his Twitter account on race day; and Steve Asmussen, trainer of beaten favorite Untapable, said that his filly “was never in position to win the race the way the track was playing today.” However, while we will indeed show the track as favoring speed via our bias indicator, it will be pink rather than the dark red that denotes a particularly strong bias. And, according to our Chief Figure Maker Craig Milkowski, it was actually a borderline call between pink and no bias designation at all.

So, despite my own pre-race doubt, based on his prior two-turn efforts, of Bayern’s ability to get the nine furlong distance, I’m gonna chalk this up more to the horse rather than to an unfair track.  Of course, the fact that the speedy Social Inclusion stumbled at the start and was then bumped by Untapable didn’t hurt.  That left Wildcat Red as the closest pursuer; but our early pace ratings show that he simply doesn’t have the early zip to stay with Baffert’s colt.  As if the rest of the field wasn’t already doomed at that point, jockey Martin Garcia got away with slowing things down a bit in the second quarter before accelerating to the 3/8ths pole and effectively putting the race away.

Bayern earned a TFUS Speed Figure of 119; here’s the full result chart (now set to show the pace figures…click here for more information on our Fractions Preferences functionality):

Easy to say now, of course, but nice payoff on the winner, as Medal Count was unfathomably bet down to 9-2, wow.  A decent-looking running line in a Triple Crown race can surely have hypnotic powers over horseplayers.  I might suggest that his connections aim that colt for the Keeneland fall meet, except that there ain’t no Polytrack there anymore.

Based on his pedigree, there surely is no reason why Bayern shouldn’t have gotten this distance (and, perhaps and given the right conditions, distances beyond).  By the Mass Cap winner Offlee Wild, he hails from the same distaff family as two recent Saratoga (sprint) winners that we’ve mentioned here in the last week.  Like Rainha Da Bateria and Vecino, Bayern has Aquilegia (a Grade 2 grass winner at a mile and a quarter) as his second dam, and the great blue hen mare Courtly Dee as his third.  The list of route stakes winners that descend from the latter is too long to go into here, but includes horses like Althea, Native Courier (a personal favorite from the late 70s), Arch, and Acoma.  So, we’ll see what Baffert decides about the Travers.  He shipped his colt back to California to avoid the erratic Saratoga weather and will decide in a couple of weeks.

As for Untapable, she had excuses in the Haskell, as she had that bumping incident with Social Inclusion at the start and then did not take the first turn well at all (which you can see better on the standard pan shot than with the unnecessary fancy camera angle utilized by NBC). If Asmussen is so sure that she was so compromised by a speed bias, let’s see the connections put their money where their mouth is and try their filly against the colts again.  I don’t think she disgraced herself at all, and believe that she deserves another chance.

– Two days of off-the-turf at Saratoga, and while some are blaming me for tweeting this, it was surely just a matter of time!

Following the impressive debut of the Toddster’s Competitive Edge on Saturday, another winner for freshman sire Super Saver on Sunday.  High Dollar Woman ($5.80) took the 3rd race, rewarding trainer Anthony Dutrow, who now gets the HOT designation in the PPs with a record of 9-4-2-0 at the meet; as well as any bettors who noticed that she came out of the same June 27 Belmont race as first race winner Sunday Sonnet ($3.80), who romped by seven lengths.  High Dollar Woman, a $675K two-year old in training purchase at Ocala in March, got the better TFUS Speed figure, 87 to 85, upgraded from a raw final time figure of 83 after she dueled through quick opening fractions in the mud. Sunday Sonnet’s race was taken off the grass, and we’d expect to see her return to that surface, as she’s a half-sister to the multiple graded turf stakes winning Pianist.

Mack Miller ($11.20) won Sunday’s 6th race, and this is why we love our NY chartcaller.

MACK MILLER was sent over to the rail well before reaching the end of the backstretch, was primarily under a firm hold by the pilot down the backstretch, but travelled around the bend being lightly encouraged eased into the two path approaching the quarter pole, spun into the stretch with clear sailing and got set down, split rivals about a sixteenth down the road, fought his way to the front the remainder of the way to the furlong marker, was chased by another pair afterwards but dug in with good determination to preserve the decision.

Now, do you really need to bother watching the replay?  This 3yo son of Yes It’s True – a half brother to the graded stakes winners Rothko and Electrify – was making his second start for trainer Gary Contessa.  This barn has won just two of 26 starts at the meet thus far; but make no mistake about it, this is a trainer to keep an eye on here.  Contessa has had a bunch of horses who have outrun their odds, including, on Monday, Run For Logistics, 2nd by a neck at 22-1 in the 7th, and I Want You To Know, 3rd at 14-1 in the 9th.  I made money on this barn at the meet last year (mostly on grass), and hope to do so again.

The Grade 3 Shuvee, run over a drying-out muddy surface that had obviously grown quite exhausting at that point in the day, was a plea for either synthetic surfaces that don’t get sloppy (strike me down for even suggesting that for Saratoga), or for horses and humans to simply find something other to do on rainy days.  Here are the incremental fractions for Antipathy ($6.40), showing how the 4yo half-sister to the multiple Grade 1 winner Scat Daddy slowed down precipitously as the race went on

Of course, there are pace figures and split variants to account for these kind of tracks and the way they change during the day.  While Antipathy’s final time of 1:52.80 was actually slower than that of the 4th race, a 3yo maiden race that was taken off the turf, our Adjusted Fractions show how we rate the two winners on a common scale.

Antipathy:

Lunar Rover:

That’s all well and good, and Antipathy was given a fine TFUS Speed Figure of 110 (as opposed to an 89 for Lunar Rover).  Still, it doesn’t compensate for the ugly sight of graded stakes animals slowing to a virtual walk by the end of the race.  (I will spare you and not embed the replay; nothing to see here.)  Nor for a travesty such as the off-the-turf 10th race, the chart for which looks like a steeplechase race, with three horses not finishing, and 22 3/4 lengths spanning the five horses that did. Yuck.