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Tom Law 
The final week of the 2018 Saratoga Race Course meeting starts Wednesday with a 10-race card that includes the last steeplechase of the season and the Grade 3 With Anticipation Stakes for 2-year-olds on the grass.
The sixth week of the 2018 Saratoga Race Course meeting came to a close Monday, a day that featured a victory by a Canadian shipper in the $100,000 Better Talk Now, a riding triple for Jose Ortiz and a training double for Rudy Rodriguez.
The chaos and ebullience of a 49,000-plus strong crowd and a graded stakes-laden card on Travers Day gave way to a much more subdued Sunday afternoon in Saratoga Race Course. By 5:46 when the day’s $100,000 Smart N Fancy Stakes went off, the crowd thinned and the atmosphere was quiet. But as the female sprinters rattled off lightning-fast fractions in the 5 1/2-furlong turf stakes, the track became animated once more.
The penultimate week of the 2018 Saratoga Race Course meeting draws to a close Monday with a nine-race card topped by a strong New York-bred allowance that features the top three from last month’s John Morrissey and the $100,000 Better Talk Now for 3-year-olds on the grass.
Jorge Abreu went 2-for-2 at Saratoga in 2016. Woodville, a filly by Ghostzapper and Abreu’s first starter, accounted for both wins and remains special to her trainer.
Saratoga Race Course’s signature event – the $1.25 million Travers Stakes – always packs plenty of intrigue and today’s 149th edition falls right in line. A field of 11 entered the 1 1/4-mile Travers and it’s no stretch to call the collection a pitchman’s dream.
New York-breds take center stage today at the fifth Saratoga Showcase, six restricted stakes for 2-year-old horses, older horses, turf horses and dirt horses cobbled together for a big appetizer before the main event Saturday with the loaded Travers Day program.
Tom Morley missed the Secretariat Stakes at Arlington Park Aug. 11 – which became the Englishman’s second Grade 1 victory – for good reason.
The shedrow of Barn 38 fell quiet after training Friday morning, aside from the rhythmic tap of rain on the roof and the whisper of straw rustling in the stalls. A groom finished wrapping Auspicious Babe’s legs in the first stall, preparing the filly for the biggest start of her career in the Grade 1 Alabama as Dallas Stewart watched from the front of her stall.
Bruce Brown is ready to get rolling and turn things around. Now if only the weather would cooperate.
