By The 2YO EdgeMan
Without question, two-year-old racing at Saratoga is special. But when the babies start running around two turns on the grass in mid/late July, the excitement goes up yet another level. Can the juvenile that you are backing get One and 1/16 of a mile on the lawn, or not – who knows? The trainers and connections have a good sense based upon the youngsters’ breeding and how they’ve worked, but many times they are not even sure.
Going back to 2019 through today (so equates to five years, plus this past Saturday and Sunday, 7/20/24 and 7/21/24) there have been a total of 76 races where the babies have competed over One and 1/16th miles on the lawn. Using Betmix’s Angler tool, I was able to easily filter out these special events and do a thorough analysis on them to find nuggets that can help us identify solid contenders for the remainder of The Spa’s meet.
As you know if you’ve read my book, “Handicapping Two-Year-Old Thoroughbreds”, I always start with the trainer. So, which trainers stand out in these unique races here at Saratoga? I suspect that my Sharp Edgies may answer that question by saying, ‘Chad Brown’. And if they did, they’d be right – as usual! Brown has won the most of any trainer as his runners have captured 16 of these affairs from the 63 starters that he’s saddled for a significant 25.4% strike rate (including his score on Sunday). The second highest count of scores goes to Todd Pletcher – 10/56, 17.9% and Christophe Clement (7/45 – 15.6%) owns the third most winners. Mike Maker and Shug McGaughey come next with five visits to the Winner’s Circle, but interestingly Shug has done it with only 25 starters (20.0% win rate) while Maker has sent out 37 runners (13.5%). Additionally, Shug’s ROI in these events is a notable $3.26. Speaking of Return on Investment, others with positive ROI numbers are Kenny McPeek (3/19, 15.8%, $2.43), Brad Cox (3/9, 33.3%, $6.40), David Donk (2/4, 50.0%, $7.13), Cherie DeVaux (2/14, 14.3%, $3.09, including her score this past Saturday), and Jorge Abreu (2/4, 50.0%, $5.33). Note – Bill Mott and George Weaver have both won four times (4/58, 6.9%, and 4/25, 16.0%, respectively).
Another interesting metric to analyze when breaking down these specific races is to look at which sires are responsible for consistent winners. The highest number of a sire’s winning sons or daughters is five – that honor is shared by Kitten’s Joy and More Than Ready (19 starts – 26.3% and 25 starts – 20%, respectively). Followed closely behind in third with four winners is again a tie – Cairo Price (19 races – 21.1%) and Tapit (15 races – 26.7%), while Lope de Vega has had three offspring visit the Winner’s Circle after these wonderful races (eight runs – 37.5%).
Lastly, let’s consider how many of these winners were First-Time starters. 44 of the 76 races were captured by juveniles making their first attempt at racing in the afternoon, accounting for 57.9% of the victories. Further 23 babies had started one time previously (30.2% of the winners) and nine had competed in two prior races (11.8% of those that scored). It is interesting and important to note that 384 starters in these races were firsters – so the strike rate for FTSers is 11.5%. 199 were running in their second event (win rate = 11.6%, and 63 were making their third career start (14.3%). Additionally, 13 had started at least three times previously, but none of those runners ever won at 1 1/16 mile on the turf.
I always preach that if you want to get really good with the juveniles you need to get very specific. I hope that this information helps you and that you continue enjoying the best segment of horse racing – the babies! Take care and be safe.
