Horse Racing picks for Belmont Park on Sunday, July 11: A Pretty Clever bet

Failed to figure on her Belmont debut as a juvenile but on her first three-year-old start, she was a different proposition, finishing second over slightly shorter. She showed a very willing attitude that day and that will hold her in good stead as she looks to graduate at the third attempt. Stretching out to seven furlongs is a big positive and given that she’s trained by Mark Casse, further improvement should be forthcoming. With natural progress, she’ll be extremely tough to beat under Luis Saez.

Costing $165,000 as a two-year-old, she was highly-tried as a juvenile, aimed at the Grade 3 Futurity at Belmont and the Grade 2 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint after a close second on debut. She ultimately failed to score in those three juvenile attempts, but she built on a promising reappearance at Keeneland when scoring comfortably at Belmont in May. She remains a promising sort and stretching out to seven furlongs today will help matters. She looks the pick of the Wesley Ward pair and with further improvement likely, she can go back to back.

 Previously trained in Germany, she was a Grade 3 winner in Europe and made a winning start in the United States for Chad Brown at Belmont in April. She followed up that performance with a great fourth in the New York Stakes, finishing ahead of today’s main rival Mutamakina. A strong stayer, today’s extra yardage will help matters and she remains lightly-raced after just eight overall starts. The best should be yet to come and she’s going to be a difficult horse to beat under Manny Franco.