One possible way of looking at Yankee's line is to wonder why there hasn't been any improvement in any of his starts. Granted, he was off poorly in the 5/12 race, which is the only other time he started from the 1 hole, which may or may not be significant. He's had problems at the gate in 2 of his 4 lifetime starts. Sure he's shown speed, but not the kind of speed that Gygistar is capable of showing if JR chooses to run with Yankee early. Perhaps when Yankee faces fractions like he faced in his last race he simply is not capable of continuing on in the same fashion as when things are slower early. Yankee does get 6lbs from Gygistar today, but that's only 2 more than he got last time and it certainly didn't make any difference in that race.

Gygistar obviously made a huge jump after the 3/23 race, but one might reach the conclusion that there was a reason for the jump, namely the addition of lasix. His small fwd move after the big jump may mean that he's capable of continuing at this level for at least one more race, ala WE. Perhaps the time off was because of physical problems, but perhaps it was because he needed time to mature. Hennig & Evans are known for their patience with young horses. Given the lack of any speed to his inside other than Yankee, one might also conclude that Gygistar is going to get an even better trip tomorrow than he had in the Riva Ridge. You could certainly argue that any ground loss in this small field is likely to be minimal.

I didn't think Gygistar's 4-1 & Yankee's 6-5 odds last time made any sense. At the same time, I would not be entirely surprised if they were co-favs or Yankee was a very slight fav. I doubt very much that either is going to go off at anywhere near the odds people seem to be looking for. As I see it, Gygistar's fair odds are slightly above even, and Yankee's are slightly above 2-1, which means that Yankee may very well be the underlay tomorrow.