Gold Cup at Santa Anita Preview

Field:

9th Race - Santa Anita Park - Saturday, June 25th, 2016
STAKES. 1 1/4 Mile Dirt. Purse $500,000. Gold Cup at Santa Anita S. (Grade 1). FOR THEEE-YEAR-OLDS AND UPWARD. (05:30 PM)
PP Horse A/S M/E Wgt Jockey Trainer
1 Bal A Bali (BRZ) 6 H L 120 Prat Flavien Mandella Richard E.
2 Second Summer 4 G L 120 Gutierrez Mario Eurton Peter
3 Hard Aces 6 H L 122 Gonzalez Santiago Sadler John W.
4 Lieutenant Colonel 4 G L 120 Garcia Martin Hollendorfer Jerry
5 Win The Space 4 C L 120 Stevens Gary L. Papaprodromou George
6 Hoppertunity 5 H L 120 Smith Mike E. Baffert Bob
7 Melatonin 5 G L 124 Talamo Joseph Hofmans David E.
8 Imperative 6 G L b 120 Bejarano Rafael Baltas Richard

With California Chrome is still recovering from his Dubai trip, the race to being the second best male on the West Coast continues with this race. Hard Aces is the defending champ of this race, but has been up and down since. Hoppertunity won the San Antonio earlier this year and is coming off a good 3rd in the World Cup. This is his first race since. Imperative has had two 4th place finishes so far this year, but has run well on this track in early summer. Melatonin suprised all with a win in the Big Cap and then backed it up with a runner up finish in the Oaklawn Handicap. The problem is Enffinex had a poor race last Saturday in the Foster. Bal a Bali has been a semi disappointment since coming to the US, but is it because of his limits? Or is it he's just not that good. Second Summer, Lieutenant Colonel and Win the Space will need to run well to even be considered.

Picks:

1st: Hard Aces
2nd: Hoppertunity
3rd: Bal A Bali

Dark Horse: Imperative