Demoiselle Stakes Picks

The Demoiselle (G2) historically has been a very productive race for the Kentucky Oaks (G1) as a whopping 19% of Demoiselle runners have reached the Kentucky Oaks starting gate the following year. I see this year’s renewal as a showdown between two daughters of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah who was recently shuttled to Japan to stand at stud for a year. While many view Coolmore’s other Triple Crown winner, Justify, as the more accomplished sire of the two, American Pharoah has always been rock-solid at producing winners on multiple surfaces and distances. Additionally, of his Top 15 North American progeny, nine of them are female and he has proven to be a fairly sought after broodmare sire, all of which brings us back to the Demoiselle as his two female offspring. I will side with the better price of the two, #4 Concurrently (3/1) for trainer Chad Brown who tried her on turf to debut before switching her to dirt where she showed marked improvement before breaking her maiden in her third start. Admittedly, Brown is 0-6 in the last five years with female juveniles running dirt routes in graded stakes races, but that is a small sample size and five of the six finished in the top three. The other notable aspect of that stat is that every female juvenile he sent out in those spots were 6/1 or higher at post time, which is not going to be the case with Concurrently. Jockey Flavien Prat, who is winning an astonishing 38% of his mounts at Aqueduct this meet, stays aboard and the horse has shown the last two times that she has some versatility as she can go to the lead or lay off the pace. In a short field, look for Prat to be aggressive and have her positioned near the front as her pedigree should have no problem carrying her the extra furlong.

The other daughter of American Pharoah, #3 Zany (6/5), is your favorite for trainer Todd Pletcher and certainly looked impressive in debut at Gulfstream Park last month where she easily romped to a 6 ½ length score in gate-to-wire fashion. She earned a 76 Beyer Speed Figure (BSF), which is tied for the top in the field, but she will be facing winners for the first time on Saturday while stretching out to nine furlongs. Those are big asks for a filly at a short price. Pletcher is renowned for being able to get distance out of his runners, even his juveniles as he is winning at a 33% clip over the last five years when stretching his debut juvenile maiden winners out to routing in graded stakes races. Still, the fact she won in frontrunning fashion begs the question whether she can rate off the pace, but she picks up jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. who is as good as they come at getting a horse to track and pounce at the right time. She’s too dangerous to leave off tickets, but it is common to see fillies regress after impressive debut victories.

Pletcher’s “other” horse could very well get the win as #6 Believable (5/1) could be the best value in the race as the $800,000 daughter of Curlin out of a Tapit mare should want to run all day and picks up Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez. Her full sibling, Tenfold, was a stayer who won the Pimlico Special (G3) going ten furlongs, so getting distance should not be an issue. She won in debut while beating Chad Brown’s Concurrently by a nose and then stepped up to run a one-turn mile in the Tempted Stakes and lost to #2 Shilling (4/1) but was caught wide and was chasing lone speed. That should not be the case Saturday, and the outside post position will allow Velazquez to play the break and get her in a solid position going into the first turn.