A trio of graded stakes races for three-year-old colts dot this weekend's graded stakes action, along with some nice races for older colts and fillies at Aqueduct, Santa Anita, Tampa, and Gulfstream Park. The three-year-old races will capture much of the attention but strong fields in the G2-Strub, G2-Arcadia, and the G3-Endevour make for a very nice start to Super Bowl weekend.

Let's take a look at some of the top action this weekend.

G2-Strub Stakes

There isn't a whole lot of speed in the Stub, which should greatly benefit the 6/5 morning line favorite, 7-Tapizar. After running a lackluster race in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, Tapizar rebounded nicely to dominate the G2-San Fernando at Santa Anita on Jan. 14^th. He's run well at this track in the past (3-2-0-0) but will be trying nine furlongs for only the second time in his career. His other attempt at this distance was a 5^th place finish in last year's Robert Lewis Stakes. If Tapizar is able to shake free of 4-Ultimate Eagle (9/2) in the early stages he will be awfully tough to catch.

1-Jaycito (4/1) has yet to show that he can run a big race on conventional dirt and, even more important, he's hasn't recorded a victory since winning the G1-Norfolk in October of 2010. He's coming off of another extended break suggesting that this colt has trouble staying in top physical condition. Those 4/1 morning line odds seem awfully low for a colt with as many questions as Jaycito.

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It's been a snowy, icy, cold, and wet week up here in the Pacific Northwest, which is perfect weather for staying inside, handicapping and watching races. The stakes calendar slowly picks up steam this weekend with a quartet of graded races and a nice ungraded event on the grass at Gulfstream Park. Let's dive into the action.

UPDATE: A couple of notes for today -

• No Amazombie in the Palos Verdes. Rain in SoCal has turned the Santa Anita main track into a sloppy mess causing the Breeders' Cup Sprint winner to scratch. Canonize has also scratched out. [Santa Anita Changes]
  
• Santa Anita is listed as WET/FAST on the main track and GOOD on the turf course. Race 5 has been taken off of the grass.
• It looks like Exfactor will run in the Lecomte after all.

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Compared to the last couple of weekends, the graded stakes calendar is pretty quiet in the U.S. However, there are some great stakes races on tap in both Canada and England.  I've already briefly touched on the inaugural British Champions Day at Ascot, but Woodbine will offer a trio of Grade 1 races on Sunday, including the Canadian International.

You can view a list of this weekend's major stakes action at the bottom of this post.

I've got family in town over the weekend, so I haven't had too much time to really pour through the past performances, but I took a look at the QEII Cup at Keeneland and the stakes races at Woodbine. 

-Together (IRE) makes a quick turnaround for Aidan O'Brien after finishing 2^nd in the G1-First Lady last Saturday.  She also raced in the Group 1 Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket on Sept. 24^th, meaning Together will be running in her third race in less than a month and her fifth since Sept. 3^rd.  Five starts in a month and a half?  We've got Grade 1 horses that are lucky to start five times in a year.

Winter Memories gets all the hype for the QEII Cup, and for once, all the hype is deserved.  A poor showing in the G2-Lake Placid over a yielding turf course on Aug. 21^st is all that separates Winter Memories form a completely unblemished 2011 campaign.  Sadly, her connections have decided that the QEII is her last race of 2011 with a trip to the Breeders' Cup out of the cards.  While that's disappointing for fans it's the right move.  This filly has never raced beyond 9 furlongs, which would make the 11 furlong Filly & Mare Turf a tough distance to handle for the first time.  But the Mile is probably less than her ideal distance, even though she's run well at a mile in the past (2-1-1-0).

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For a long time now I've been trying to figure out how to handicap Juvenile maiden races. The hard part is to figure out what their pedigree brings to the table insofar as how mature the colt/filly is at that point. And while we know the characteristics of most sires (Dynaformers are turf horses; FuPegs like running long and on the lawn) none of that really applies at the 2yo age. There are two major factors at play on top of the usual considerations, maturity/size and the rate of growth of the colt/filly. Other factors don't exist (usually) since most juvenile races are rarely more than 7f and are usually on the dirt/synthetic.

So I took a look at the Juvenile Sire list and attempted to distill what I could from the data available to the public.

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After lots of handicapping, video watching, chart reviews, and typing, it's time for one of the busiest and most important weekends of the year. The two-day horse racing extravaganza kicks off tomorrow morning in France and ends Sunday evening at Santa Anita. I'll have a Live Blog for all of the weekend's action beginning bright and early Saturday morning with the start of the Arc festival in France. From there we'll tackle the Super Saturday stakes, Sunday morning's Arc, and, finally, the featured juvenile races on Sunday afternoon.  After that's over, I'm going to take a long nap... and then start gearing up for Keeneland and the Breeders' Cup.

With that out of the way, below is a summary of the Saturday's action, along with my down and dirty thoughts on the Super Saturday graded stakes races, in order of post time. You can find the entries for all of this weekend's big races, along with the morning line odds and results, at the file below (via Google Docs).

Super Saturday/Arc Sunday Entries and Results

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There were a lot of good turf races at Woodbine this weekend, highlighted by the Tureallure's win in the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile on Sunday.  On Saturday, the juveniles took center stage in the Natalma and Summer Stakes, won by Northern Passion and Finale, respectively.  Thanks to the wonder world of Trakus, we can take a more in-depth look at the top finishers in each of these two races.  (Woodbine Trakus Charts)

Let's look at the pair of juvenile turf races that ran on Saturday, both of which were contested over one mile.  I've combined the data from those two races into the following charts since the races were at the same distance, track and day.  While the pace of each was different, I think we can make some interesting comparisons and observations from these two races from the Trakus data.

The data below includes the top four finishes in each of the two races, along with the amount of ground covered, ground loss (if any), and average speed.  All eight horses are sorted by total ground covered.

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The development of the Trakus electronic tracking technology has allowed horse players to look at a race in different ways than the traditional methods of charts and video replays.  One of the biggest aspects of the technology is the collection of data relating to ground loss, fractional times, and more accurate measurements of horse separation at intervals around the track. Currently, only a few tracks utilize Trakus technology on a daily basis - Keeneland, Del Mar, Churchill Downs and Woodbine.  Gulfstream Park has announced that they will add the technology for their 2011-2012 winter meet. 

Earlier today I wrote a post on the Pacific Classic and Travers where I looked at the data from the Equibase and DRF Formulator charts in order to analyze and compare the performances of the horses in each race  That data was based on the times recorded by the timer at the track, with extrapolations based on the chart-callers beaten lengths estimates. Almost all of the past performance data, speed figures, performance ratings, and pace figures we see in the horse racing world are based off of this data.

Trakus data, since it is based on radio frequencies and timing for each and every horse in the field (as opposed to estimates based off one horse) can provide a much clearer picture than estimated running positions of traditional charts.  Since Del Mar utilizes Trakus technology, and provides the results on their website, I'd thought I would dive into the data for yesterday's Pacific Classic.

According to the Trakus data from Del Mar, Acclimation covered the 10 furlong Pacific Classic in 1:59.96, which is slightly faster than the track timer result of 2:00.16.  In terms of distance traveled, rate of speed, and final times, the race broke down in the following manner:

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The Travers Day card at Saratoga kicks off a 11:35am Eastern (8:35am Pacific) on Saturday morning.  Both the Travers Stakes and the King’s Bishop will be telecast on NBC-TV. There are a total of 13 races on the card, including five graded stakes (G2-Ballston Spa, G3-Victory Ride, G1-Ballerina, G1-King’s Bishop, G1-Travers Stakes).

Below is my $0.10 take on the major stakes races on the Travers card at Saratoga.  All post times are Eastern.

Race 8: Grade 2 Ballston Spa – (Post time: 3:28pm)

This year’s Ballston Spa came up a bit light in terms of depth; there are some nice fillies and mares in the field, but the race is lacking star power.

3-Daveron (GER) (3/1) has shown some excellent form in 2011 but she’s only run two races in over eight months. The race appears to set-up pretty well for her with Romacaca and Trix in the City likely setting an honest pace. 

9-Tapitsfly (10/1) won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Filly Turf back in 2009, but missed all of 2010 due to injury and has only one win from six starts in 2011.  It’s been a disappointing two years for a filly that once held a lot of promise.

Race 9: Grade 3 Victory Ride - (Post time: 4:03pm)

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