This is really a puzzling question because on the one hand, European horses tend to do very well on Santa Anita's turf course, but the heat wave they've had is very hard to factor in.

My only thought is to observe the horses in the post parade and warm-ups and look for clues; I love a few Euro's this year and my feeling is I'm not going to play pick six's or even pick fours if I can't see the horse; I love Islington, and I just read how she doesn't like the heat, same situation for Falbrav -- ok, so, it's 95 there today, and it will be 75 on Saturday, but 75 is still a completely different experience than where they came from; the rock hard (pool-table like) surface is a different story as well; we'll see how slow they are able to make it this week -- I have noticed that when they try and slow things down, speed horses don't fare very well, but that's just an observation. The surface gets more cushion to it and it tends to burn out the speed types.


Honestly, though, nothing can be worse than last year -- starting the mile on the turn so the greatest horse in the world (at the time) has absolutely no shot in the Breeder's Cup mile -- what a nightmare old Arlington Park was!