Today at Keeneland is the $6 Mil. Breeders Cup Classic, run at 1 ¼ mi. on the dirt for three-year olds and up. The race features a stellar field, including favorite, #4 Flightline, who is undefeated in five starts after winning the Pacific Classic by nineteen lengths in September in a blistering time of 1:59. Vying against him is Baffert trained, #1 Taiba, who is a two-time G1 winner in five races. Taiba won the Pennsylvania Derby at 1 1/8 mi. at Parx in Sept. There is also #2 Life is Good, winner of his last three races, including two G1 races in the Woodward in Oct. and the Whitney in Aug, which both were at 1 1/8mi. Another horse is Kentucky Derby runner-up, Epicenter, who has won or finished second in his last six races, including winning the Travers at 1 ¼ mi. at Saratoga in Aug. The Handicap Wizard is favoring #4 Flightline in this race with a total win probability of 35.18%. Flightline projects best in final speed with a 63.3% win estimate, while having low risk with a Coefficient of Variance of just 4.79%. He also has the best COMP value at 48.1%. Flightline’s fair value according to SPD and COMP is 1/2 or better. The one weakness Flightline has is his class, whose adjusted win percentage of 11.6% is fourth best after Hot Rod Charlie, Life is Good and Epicenter. The second selection is #1 Taiba with a total win probability of 17.21%, which gives him some value at 8-1 on the M/L. Taiba projects second in final speed with a 21% win estimate but has higher risk with a 11.25% Coefficient of Variance. Taiba has the edge in LP with a 55.1% win estimate. The third selection is #2 Life is Good with a total win probability of 16.73%. Life is Good projects fairly well across E1, E2, and LP, but what is most notable is his 30% COMP, which has a 2-1 fair value according to that metric. For the fourth selection, it’s a toss up between #5 Hot Rod Charlie and #6 Epicenter, who both have total win probabilities of around 10% versus odds of 15-1% and 5-1, respectively, on the M/L. In the final analysis, Flightline is in the driver’s seat in the race, who likely will be on the lead in the early going, as the horse projects 2^nd in E1 at 36.3% and first in E2 at 79.3%. The E2 value is a big number, indicating Flightline will likely be well ahead of the field heading into the last quarter mile, when Taiba, Epicenter and Life is Good will all be challenging because of their 20% or better LP estimates. Taiba’s 55.1% LP estimate stands out, even though there is some variance behind that number. It all depends on whether Taiba is able to maintain the form he had in the Pennsylvania Derby from late September. If the track conditions are dry, Life is Good could be competitive if he can repeat his performance in the Whitney from Aug. at Saratoga, when he put up a 113 final speed number on the dry track while turning away Hot Rod Charlie and Happy Saver down the stretch. The final selections according to the program are #4 Flightline, #1 Taiba, #2 Life is Good and #5 Hot Rod Charlie.    

Look for some analyses of the Breeders Cup races coming up this weekend!

Here are the selections for today’s $1 mil. G2 Kentucky Turf Cup Stakes at Kentucky Downs, using the PHW Turf program. #8 Gufo appears a little rich on at 7/5 on the M/L compared to a 26.57% total win probability. The second selection, #12 Highest Honors, has value at 12-1 on the M/L versus a 15.28% win probability (equating to a fair value around 6-1) but is risky with a CV of 14%. Generally, anything above 10% indicates higher than average risk. The handicapper might also find value in #7 Admission Office at 10-1 on the M/L because of the 20.9% COMP value relative to a 8.7% CV. Admission Office was the winner of the G3 Arlington Stakes at 1 1/16 mi. at the beginning of June and put up a 110 fig. in his second to last race at Belmont in July.

Here are the projections for today’s G1 Haskell Stakes at Monmouth, run at 1 1/8 mi. on the dirt for three year olds. The race looks between Chad Brown Trained and undefeated #7 Jack Christopher and Bob Baffert trained #2 Taiba with Jack Christopher projecting best in terms of final speed because of his most recent start.

The Handicap Wizard turf program had a nice result yesterday in the 10th race at Belmont, the G1 Manhattan, Stakes, run at 1 1/4 mi. on the turf for four-year olds and up. The program’s second selection was #7 Tribhuvan (FR), who had a total win probability of 17.36%. The horse’s fair value was around 5-1 compared to final odds of 19. The horse projected dominantly in E1 and E2 with win estimates of 72.0% and 60.9%. Although the horse had a final speed estimate of only 1.7% due to having fallen out of form, the COMP value of 40.3% signaled about 6-5 strength for the horse on the component level in the aggregate according to the simulation. As the program predicted, Tribhuvan went to the lead and held on to win impressively by four lengths. The COMP was key because of the horse’s low risk with a Coefficient of Variance of 7.58%. The horse paid $40.20 for the win. This handicapper did have Tribhuvan to show.