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00:00This weekend, today, tomorrow and Sunday, there's eight Breeder's Cup Winning Your In races, and one of the big ones is the Grade 1 Breeders Futurity tomorrow.
00:16It's going to be race nine on the card, and it's a bunch of two-year-olds, so it's a bunch of baby horses.
00:21We haven't seen a whole lot of them yet, so liable to have surprises tomorrow.
00:27And the winner will get that birth into the Breeders' Cup.
00:30And since these are babies, we might be seeing some of our future Kentucky Derby contenders tomorrow.
00:37Absolutely. You never know in these two-year-old races who might be a Derby or a Preakness or a Belmont winner here.
00:43One of them could be Ferocious, who has been very impressive, Alexa, in his two starts.
00:48He was a really nice winner in his debut.
00:50Then he came back, and he stepped up, and he faced some of the best two-year-olds, the best horses in his age group, in his division.
00:56And he was a really good second, so that proves he's at the tip-top of the division.
01:01And the horse that beat him, Chancellor McPatrick, he's not running in here.
01:04He's running, actually, at Belmont and Aqueduct on Saturday.
01:08So, Ferocious, I think he's installed as the morning line favorite, and he deserves to be coming off that good second-place finish.
01:14Yeah, it was a really good second-place finish, and I honestly think he probably should have won that race.
01:20If you watch in the stretch, I think he had trouble shifting leads.
01:24And for those of you who don't know what that means in horse racing, so the lead is whatever leg the horse is reaching farther with in their stride.
01:33And they naturally change leads throughout the race.
01:36Like when they go around the turn, they're leading with their inside leg, the leg closest to the rail, and that just helps keep balance.
01:44And then when they get back on the straightaway, they'll want to shift to that outside lead.
01:49It's hard to see if you haven't watched a lot of races, but you'll see this kind of burst of momentum and energy.
01:56And like I said, a lot of that happens naturally, but sometimes they need training and urging from the jockey in order to shift those leads.
02:03So you saw him kind of stall in the stretch and then go again, and I think that was a little bit delayed lead shift.
02:10So if they've trained that out of him, I think he's got a really good shot tomorrow.
02:14Think about when you're young and you're learning footwork for a new sport or something like that.
02:18It'll take you a little while sometimes to get it down, but then once you do, it's fluid motion.
02:23Sometimes these young horses, they're still kind of green.
02:26You can see that they're still figuring out their gait completely.
02:29And when they get tired sometimes, that's when they really have a tough time doing that.
02:33Let's move to a big long shot, Alexa, the number two.
02:35I don't have a whole lot to say about Saratoga Cruiser.
02:38It was impressive to close from way out of it, but that was against a lot softer group than this.
02:44These are way tougher rivals.
02:45They are.
02:46I mean, again, impressive win, huge step up.
02:49I think it's going to be a big ask for him tomorrow.
02:52Number three, Optical was extremely impressive in winning on September the 18th over at Churchill Downs.
02:58One by 14 lengths.
03:00He was able to get out front and just cruise on the lead.
03:03I don't know if he's going to get that type of trip here.
03:05He's another one who he's going to get the acid test facing a lot tougher group.
03:09Absolutely.
03:10That performance was really impressive.
03:12He'd had three starts before that.
03:14So he's got four races under the belt, which is more than anybody in here.
03:18The first three were pretty bad.
03:20So we saw this completely different horse.
03:22He got to the lead, didn't have a lot of pace pressure.
03:24So I don't think he's going to get that easy of a trip this time.
03:28The number four, Handsome Pants.
03:30I'd say he was named for our producer, Mike, Alexa, but he's more than just Handsome Pants
03:34because he's back there pulling the strings on this broadcast as well.
03:38Handsome Pants was a debut winner, and he was impressive to go a mile and a 16th in your career debut
03:45and to close from about five lengths out of it.
03:48You don't see a whole lot of horses do that in their first start.
03:51I think this horse has some maturity, and I think he shows experience a lot more than a horse with just that one race.
03:58You're absolutely right.
03:59You don't see a lot of horses debuting at a mile and 16th.
04:02Actually, of everybody in here, there's only two that have run that distance,
04:06and he's the only one who's run that distance on the dirt.
04:09So I think he's absolutely a play in here.
04:12I'm actually very surprised we're getting 10 to 1 odds on him.
04:14Yeah, the number five, East Avenue.
04:17He's really fast early, Alexa.
04:19His debut at Ellis Park was extremely impressive.
04:22I think that's what we can expect from him again, right, probably flashing that good early speed?
04:26Yeah, he should be the pace setter in here.
04:28He's definitely a contender.
04:30My only question is if he can handle the pace pressure because there is going to be a fast pace,
04:35and I do think he'll get more pressure from his foes in here.
04:38So we'll see if he can handle it, but I like him.
04:41Yeah, stretching out from six furlongs to a mile and a 16th isn't easy,
04:45but he looks like he has that natural ability.
04:47Filoso, I don't really have any knocks on that effort.
04:51He showed improvement from start one to start two.
04:54This is what happens in these stakes races, right?
04:56All of these horses are good.
04:57They're coming off of nice wins.
04:59He's got to have to pick and choose because he can't use them all.
05:02Yeah, I mean, we do have to pick and choose,
05:04and the added distance in the last start seemed to help him,
05:07so the added distance today doesn't really bother me.
05:10The only thing that is why I didn't choose is because his trainer doesn't really have very good stats
05:15with two-year-old horses or horses coming off of a win.
05:18Macero is the next one, the number seven.
05:21His win came on back at Ellis Park in July,
05:24and then he tried stakes company in the Iroquois at Churchill Downs.
05:28He was short that day.
05:29It was a fine effort.
05:30I just felt like I wanted to see a little bit more.
05:32He was 20-1 against stakes company that day,
05:34so I'm kind of taking a wait-and-see approach with him.
05:37I actually like this as a long shot and maybe not to win,
05:40but on the underneath and exotics, like you said,
05:42been out twice, stepped up, and disappointed.
05:45However, I like that he was still trying the entire race and improving.
05:49His speed figures improved a lot between the first and second start,
05:52and I think we could see some more improvement tomorrow.
05:56Boat is the next one.
05:57He was a debut winner on September the 12th over at Churchill Downs,
06:01and it's no real knocks on that effort.
06:05You start going through this field, and you have a lot of these talented horses.
06:09He's one who wouldn't shock me if he jumped up
06:11and improved just a little bit off that debut race.
06:15It was a nice race, Alexa.
06:17It was a nice race, and his trainer, James DeVito,
06:20is really good with two-year-olds.
06:21He has a 27% win rate and over a $3.50 ROI.
06:25Like you said, we've got to pick and choose.
06:26This is a salty field.
06:28This is going to be a tough race.
06:30I think this might be a little bit tough of a spot for him.