Whitney Stakes Preview

Today’s featured race is race 9 at Saratoga, the $1 million Whitney Stakes, run at 1 1/8 on the dirt for three-year olds and upwards. In the field are a number of top contenders, including the Dubai World Cup winner, Thundersnow, the winner of the Alysheba and Malibu Stakes in McKinzie from the Baffert Barn, the winner of the Suburban Handicap, Preservationist, and the winner of the Santa Anita Gold Cup, Vino Rosso. The Handicap Wizard is favoring Thundersnow in this race with a 34% total winning probability for his class in winning the $12 million Dubai World Cup, while having Preservationist (26.3%) and then McKinzie (17.8%) as its second and third selections. Preservationist has the highest final speed winning estimate in the field according to the simulation results at 68.3%, thanks to a blow out most recent final figure of 116—the highest in the field. This is especially impressive in the context of handicapping the 1 1/8 mi. Whitney, given that the Suburban Handicap was at 1 1/4 mi. Next in the speed results is McKinzie with 24% final speed winning probability, who was second to Mitole in the 1 mile Metropolitan Handicap at the beginning of June. In sum, Preservationalist at 3-1 on the M/L appears to have the edge in this race after having won his last four races, despite the the Suburban Handicap being his only stakes race. This race is reminiscent of the Florida Derby, when Maximum Security with the most speed won, even though he had not run in a graded stakes race until that point. Those riding the Baffert bandwagon in taking McKinzie at 3-2 on the M/L may be fooled. However, at the same time, Thundersnow should not be counted out as a horse who shown he can step up to the challenge in big races. The following results were generated using 0.5 as the alpha value.