Venue thoughts for January 5

[JolyB]

I've been looking at some of the options for the venue for our contest next Saturday and am in a bit of a quandary. None of the choices jump out at me as absolutely perfect picks, and I would appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.

I've considered, without any strong convictions:
(1) Returning to Santa Anita, which will feature the G2 San Gabriel and the G3 Sham, which will award KY Derby qualifying points.

(2) Heading to Gulfstream, whose card includes 5 small stakes races (2 of which are restricted stakes). A drawback to GP is the strong likelihood that we will be there on at least Jan 26 for the Pegasus World Cup and Feb 2 for the Holy Bull and perhaps for the Sunshine Millions card earlier in the month.

(3) Somewhere else entirely just because it's there. By that, I mean some venue that might not have important races, but would provide an interesting and enjoyable change of pace before the Derby trail starts to really heat up.

If any of you have some preferences, I'd love to hear them before making the final selection.

[cal828]

Past performances, at least the free ones, come out tomorrow. Maybe you should wait to see what the fields look like at each venue you are considering. Santa Anita, as you said, might produce a derby contender in the Sham so that seems like a logical place to play, but really wherever you choose is good.

[RUFFIAN]

Mew Mew Mew
O My What To Do.

If I Were To Make A Choice
Of Where To Run That day

I Would Choose Santa Anita
As The Track That We Will Play

[JolyB]

From your comments, it appears that there are no objections to returning to Santa Anita this Saturday. Let's go there. Entries are out and the 10 race card should be interesting. Not surprisingly, the names Baffert, Miller and Hollendorfer figure prominently in the trainer column for the Sham, which includes 10 Kentucky Derby qualifying points to the winner.

First post will be at 12:00 Noon Pacific time. Hope to see all of you in the starting gate.

[ElPrado]

I wonder what we will face at GP for Pegasus day?
The turf race seems to be becoming a fiasco. Last I heard, there were4 possibles, 1 of those a Japanese filly. I'm all for the Japanese filly, but she's getting so many incentives to show up, with only 3 others even thinking about it, that they might as well put her on a float and have her groom waving at the stands as she swishes her tail on a drive by. No clue which other horses will float by with her.