Belmont | Race 8 | Post Time 4:43 p.m. (ET) | Go to the TimeformUS PPs
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Crystalle (#4) is obviously the horse to beat in this Miss Grillo. She was controversially demoted from the victory in her debut, but she ran an awesome race that day, overcoming a slow start to win going away. She arguably took a step forward in the P. G. Johnson last time. While she again broke very slowly, she took Joel Rosario into the race while going wide around the far turn and finished well in deep stretch. Perhaps her gate issues will eventually cause more serious problems for her, but I don’t believe it’s a huge concern at this point in time given her running style. My only issue is that she’s likely to be a pretty strong favorite in this race, and I don’t think she has that much margin for error. She beat English Breeze by only three-quarters of a length last time, and that filly had some trouble of her own.

While ENGLISH BREEZE (#5) broke well and got a much better trip for the first 6 furlongs of that P. G. Johnson, she had to wait in traffic at the quarter pole and alter course multiple times through the stretch. Perhaps she wouldn’t have ever beaten Crystalle, but the gap between them would have been smaller. English Breeze showed nice progression from her debut into that second start and she might be able to take another step forward here. If she’s around her morning line price of 5-1, I think she offers some value.

As for the others, most are coming out of maiden races. I slightly prefer Selflessly (#8) of Chad Brown’s duo, since she might be suited to the stretch-out and was very wide in her debut. I could also use My Sassy Sarah (#3), who was visually impressive when beating an inferior group of New York-breds in fast time.

THE PLAY

Win: 5
Exacta Key Box: 5 with 2,3,4,6,8
Trifecta: 4,5 with 4,5 with 2,3,6,8