Anne Marie Duff

SARATOGA SATURDAY

WITH no clear leader among the three-year-olds, all eyes are on the two big three-year-old contests at Saratoga and Monmouth this weekend. The Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga tonight (ATR 11.18pm) is only a Grade 2 but features the Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming and Preakness winner Cloud Computing.

Tomorrow, the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational contains another group of Derby also-rans, all bidding to reassert themselves at the top of the three-year-old division.

The Jim Dandy promises to be a crucial watershed – with both leading contenders having one classic victory each - to indicate what happens for the rest of the season.

Neither Always Dreaming nor Cloud Computing have run since the Preakness, and both classic winners have been pointing for the second Saturday at Saratoga ever since. It looks a fascinating two-horse race between them.

Good Samaritan was third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf and has mixed it on turf this season, finishing third in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby last time. Giuseppe The Great and Pavel complete the field. Always Dreaming was impressive up to the Kentucky Derby and off a break, he can recover his early season form.

SELECTION: Always Dreaming

NEXT BEST: Cloud Computing

ALSO on the card, in the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap (10.02pm) over six furlongs, top sprinter A.P Indian takes on a field of eight including second favourite Limousine Liberal, who is bidding for four-timer. In the Grade 2 Bowling Green Handicap (10.40pm) on turf, the Grade 1 Woodford Manhattan Reserve winner Ascend bids for his fourth win of the season for Graham Motion. Also on the card, Todd Pletcher’s Coal Front is favourite for the Grade 2 Amsterdam Stakes for three-year-olds.

DEL MAR SATURDAY

CHAMPION sprinter Drefong headlines the Grade 1 Bing Crosby at Del Mar. Bob Baffert’s Eclipse Award winner goes for five in a row. He was the dominant sprinter last season with a win Grade 1 win at Saratoga last year before his Breeders’ Cup Sprint success. Roy H looks his nearest rival.

MONMOUTH - SUNDAY

THE Grade 1 betfair.com Haskell Invitational tomorrow night (ATR 10.47pm) features five Derby also-rans in the third home Battle Of Midway, plus Practical Joke (fifth), McCraken and Girvin both who had troubled runs, Hence and Irish War Cry. The latter drew the rail as the 5/2 morning-line favourite in the nine-furlong contest. Winner of the Group 2 Wood Memorial, he flopped in the Kentucky Derby but just lost out in the Belmont Stakes to Tapwrit.

The seven-horse field also includes the unbeaten Timeline, the most interesting runner following Arrogate’s emergence last year.

He’s the less accomplished of trainer Chad Brown’s two Haskell runners, with Practical Joke the only Grade 1 winner in the field, but as a two-year-old. Timeline is unbeaten with four starts at four different tracks at four different distances and was only slightly pressed to won the Grade 3 Peter Pan.

SELECTION: Irish War Cry

NEXT BEST: Battle of Midway

DEL MAR SUNDAY

THE green and white silks of Hronis Racing caused a big shock with Accelerate last weekend and are supported by an odds-on favourite this time in the Grade 1 Clement L. Hirsch Stakes with champion mare Stellar Wind. She won this last year, when she upset the favourite Beholder.

The five-year-old Curlin mare has impressed in her first two starts of the season. She won outside of California for the first time since joining the Sadler string in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom at Oaklawn Park in April to start her season, then beat tomorrow’s runner Hirsch Vale Dori by a neck in the Grade 1 Beholder Mile in June.