The Totemaster General

This turf n1x on the inner turf revolves around #7 My Sea Cottage, the 9/5 morning line favorite dropping out of two Grade 1 attempts for Mark Casse. He’s going to be bet very hard and he may win, but there are quite a few bad races and non-winning races in his range today.

Most of those races have been introduced by the possibility of badly degraded form. His last race in the Woodbine Mile was not very good, which may be in part from not being asked for a whole lot once it was clear he hasn’t pulling it off. But it could also be because he spent what he had in the Fourstardave at Saratoga in the race prior, where he contested a hot pace and actually held for fourth and got a big number for it from TimeformUS.

The inner turf at Woodbine at 7.5 furlongs is also not especially friendly to horses on the lead, and he may get a lot of pressure from #3 Beau Guest, who is going two turns for the first time.

If he does get hooked up in a duel, then it would open things up potentially for a big price in #2 Perfect Crime, who doesn’t find paces to run at all that often, but when he does he makes his run at it, as when he took second place at 37/1 two back.

But more likely, it ends up with one of #1 Palio or #6 Spirit Animal. My mind wouldn’t be completely blown if the latter ends up going off post time favorite, really. He is my top pick and has clearly been a very good one since hooking up with Martin Drexler.

Here is my line on the contenders:

#1 Palio – 7/2 #2 Perfect Crime – 10/1 #4 Hunt Master – 10/1 #6 Spirit Animal – 5/2 #7 My Sea Cottage – 4/1