Jeremy Plonk's 5 Keeneland Keys for Week 2

By Jeremy Plonk @Horseplayernow 

Racing This Week: Wednesday-Sunday, October 7-11 

Super Saez’ed Opportunity: After a 9-win Fall Stars Weekend, jockey Luis Saez departs back to New York, leaving the local jockey colony with a chance to fill a major void. Saez won 6 races aboard 2-year-olds, his agent Kiaran McLaughlin landing him on live mounts. Tyler Gaffalione won 3 times on the juveniles and might be positioned to pick up the slack. Consider that none of Gaffalione’s 4 overall wins last week came for prolific trainer Mike Maker, and you know that connection will find paydirt. Hall of Famer Javier Castellano moves his tack from NY to Keeneland this week, and he could land on the classy Todd Pletcher/Chad Brown players to come. Florent Geroux’s business will pick up after a road trip last week to Pimlico for Preakness. 

Welcome Back, Bejarano: Jockey Rafael Bejarano returned to Keeneland from California last weekend after a 10-year absence and scored a pair of opening week victories. His business immediately picked back up in the weekday entries for the upcoming days and the one-time dominant rider on the Kentucky circuit could be poised to make noise. His opening weekend wins, including a 24-1 bomber, came for trainers Phil Bauer and Jimmy Divito; you can expect bigger names to be dialing him the remainder of the meet.

Kentucky Downs Momentum: No circuit produced more opening weekend winners than Kentucky Downs’ 8. While Saratoga and Churchill were nosed out of that photo at 7 apiece, when you consider the shortness of the KD meet and all-turf nature, that’s a remarkable feat. Last year’s opening weekend saw things 8-7-4 in victories with Churchill-Saratoga-Kentucky Downs the order. Quite a turn-around. Kentucky Downs runners accounted for 5 of the 9 turf races offered, but also 3 of the 10 dirt route non-stakes. In terms of win %s by total starters, Saratoga led with 23% winners, Kentucky Downs next at 19% and Churchill produced 9% victories. KD was the only of that trio to flash a flat-bet profit at $1.33 ROI for every $1 bet. 

First-Crop / Fast Starts: Sires Laoban and Air Force Blue came out firing at the 2020 Fall Meet with a pair of 2-year-old winners. Laoban was represented by 1-1/16 miles Grade 2 Alcibiades winner Simply Ravishing, as well as 1-mile dirt allowance victor Dreamer’s Disease – not to mention Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity runner-up Keepmeinmind at 52-1 odds. Air Force Blue’s 2 starters, both maiden winners, included Off We Go sprinting 6 furlongs on dirt and Guana Cay routing on dirt at 1-1/16 miles. 

Everyday Deliveries: Nearly one-third of all races last week (10-31) were stakes, and more than half (17-31) were allowance or stakes races. That classification profile will shift some over this coming week and the remaining weeks of the Fall Meet. Trainers to watch in claiming races given past success in Fall Meets since 2014 at the level: Mike Maker (13 wins, 33%), Chris Richard (8 wins, 33%), Angel Montano Jr. (7 wins, 39%), Wayne Catalano (6 wins, 40%), Mike Tomlinson (5 wins, 46%), Joe Sharp (5 wins, 33%) and Wesley Ward (5 wins, 31%).