Whitney (G1) Picks

Pace Scenario

The pace dynamics for Saturday's signature race, the Whitney (G1), are less clear than you might imagine. Yes, there is no doubt that #1 Magnitude will go to the lead from the inside rail. While Steve Asmussen’s son of Not This Time can rate, his post position will dictate that he set the tempo up front as he did in his last two victories. Presumably, you will see #2 Nitrogen with Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez aboard be aggressive early to keep Magnitude company, which is something he has not faced in his last two races. The news came out earlier in the week that #4 Forged Steel, who could have been another pace presence, is likely to scratch, which means the only other horse that could provide some early pace pressure is #3 Antiquarian who stumbled badly out of the gate in his last effort, but who showed the ability to sit on the pace in the Met Mile (G1) earlier this summer. There should be an honest pace with Nitrogen keeping tabs on Magnitude, so I believe you can reasonably expect horses like #8 Baeza and #6 Sovereignty to make up ground in the stretch. The question will be whether Magnitude can hold on going nine furlongs with pace pressure.

Analysis

There are so many questions in this race. Can Magnitude get over a track he hated last year? Can he replicate his efforts with pace pressure? Can Sovereignty regain his Horse of the Year form from 2025? Can Baeza learn how to get out of the starting gate? Can Nitrogen stack up against the boys? This is what makes horse racing exciting!

From all the questions above, I feel most confident about #8 Baeza (7-2) being able to successfully answer his, particularly at his morning line price. The son of McKinzie was never known for his sire, as he is out of the mare Puca, who just so happened to foal 2023 Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Mage and 2024 Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Dornoch in successive years. However, Baeza was a May foal, meaning he was a little behind the rest of the horses in his crop during last year’s Triple Crown run, as he could only muster third-place finishes in the Kentucky Derby (G1) and Belmont Stakes (G1) behind last year’s two standouts of Sovereignty and Journalism. Eventually, he got his Grade 1 moment in the Pennsylvania Derby (G1), and most believe he was primed for a big 2026 as he finally got caught up to the rest of his cohort in terms of development. However, a bad habit started to emerge toward the end of last year when he hopped at the start of the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1). You could chalk that up to jitters and being stuck between two speed horses, but then in his first start of 2026 something bad at the gate happened again. Whether you believe the trip notes that he “hesitated” at the start of the Alysheba or whether you believe your eyes that an assistant starter held him a second too long, the result was the same: Baeza was hopelessly left at the back of a five-horse field. He made a huge run to nearly win but finished a close third by less than a length against Grade 1 winner Skippylongstocking and Corporate Power. Then came the Stephen Foster (G1), where he once again got off slowly and was last in a short field. Despite Magnitude being left alone on the lead, Bill Mott’s trainee still made a big late run to finish a closing second. After three straight poor starts, changes are being made. Mott is getting additional padding placed in the gate, which is something you see Japanese runners do when they come to North America. He is training beautifully leading up to the race, and if top jockey Flavien Prat gets him out of the gate and into a traditional tracking trip sitting mid-pack, then we already know he has more than enough firepower and pedigree to finish the job at nine furlongs. This feels like the race where he puts it all together as he has shown tremendous progression in his two starts in 2026 despite the poor beginnings. Getting out of the gate is no certainty, but at his morning line price he has the fewest questions, and I believe on Saturday he will get a career-defining victory.

Perhaps the horse with the most questions is his stablemate #6 Sovereignty (3-1), who is the reigning Horse of the Year after he dominated three-year-old competition, winning the Fountain of Youth (G2), Kentucky Derby (G1), Belmont Stakes (G1), Jim Dandy (G2), and Travers (G1) during a historic campaign. However, he got sick in the days leading up to the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) and took time to recover. When he returned to the track at four, we saw an unusual race from him in the Oaklawn Handicap (G2), where he set the fractions with his 2025 nemesis Journalism pressing him the whole way. Meanwhile, wily veteran White Abarrio and jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. sat the perfect trip and went by in the stretch. Considering the long layoff and the odd running of the race, it was easy to excuse that runner-up performance. However, in the Stephen Foster (G1), he had a puzzling effort as he never looked comfortable down the backstretch before making a move into contention on the turn and flattening out in the stretch to finish fourth. I do believe the track was an issue. How much weight you want to put on that likely depends on your overall perspective of Sovereignty. Personally, I lean slightly toward thinking the track, more so than Magnitude being lone speed, played a factor in his performance. Yes, he won the Kentucky Derby (G1) over a wet track at Churchill Downs prior to the Stephen Foster (G1), but not all wet tracks are equal. Anyone who has walked across a racing surface can tell you that. The track on Kentucky Derby Day 2025 was a traditional sloppy sealed track with rain still readily soaking into the surface. He loved it. The track on Stephen Foster Day 2026 was a drying-out track that had taken a huge amount of rain in the previous 48 hours. Yes, it was still categorized as sloppy, but a drying-out track can be “sticky,” and horses will respond very differently to that than a traditional wet track. It seemed obvious coming out of the first turn that he was not getting over the surface as well as jockey Junior Alvarado would like, as he was scrubbing on him to get the bit and move into contention. Did Magnitude being left alone on the lead contribute? Of course. However, the downfall of Sovereignty might be grossly exaggerated. He has looked better in the morning than he did prior to some of his other races, but he has never been an amazing workout horse, and it’s easy to see how Baeza flashes more in the mornings. However, he is a champion, and he gets back to a track where he won three graded stakes last year, and it should be rated as a fast track come post time. I think we will see him return to his 2025 form on Saturday. Whether that is enough to beat one of the most competitive Whitney (G1) fields in recent memory is a question, and while I will be including him in my Pick 5 wagers, I do believe he will attract a great deal of public support at the windows and would rather go for the better price of the two Mott runners.

The horse that could make me look foolish is #1 Magnitude (9-5), who is your rightful morning line favorite and squarely the horse to beat in this race. The winner of the Stephen Foster (G1) and Dubai World Cup (G1) is only getting better with age for trainer Steve Asmussen, who also had another horse, Gun Runner, who blossomed as an older horse. Magnitude still has races to run before he is put in the same breath as the Hall of Fame runner and superstar stallion, but he is on his way. I was squarely against him last year in the Travers (G1) and was somewhat appalled at how people tried to justify that he was “good value” as the 2-1 second choice. 2-1 odds equate to a horse having a 33% chance of winning a race. There is not a dimension of reality we have discovered in which Magnitude was winning the 2025 Travers (G1) 33% of the time. That gripe aside, the horse rebounded nicely from his 19 ½-length defeat at Saratoga to run second to Baeza in the Pennsylvania Derby (G1), as he showed a new dimension of coming from off the pace. The smartest thing Asmussen did was skipping the Breeders’ Cup as he got a head start on Magnitude’s upcoming campaign by winning the Clark (G2) at Churchill Downs and the Razorback (G3) at Oaklawn Park before defeating the best dirt horse in the world, Forever Young, in the Dubai World Cup. However, after his Stephen Foster (G1) victory, you can make the case that his form has gotten a bit dressed up, as he has secured easy leads in his last two starts and was asking for the wire in Dubai while posting the third-slowest final time in the history of the race. The question on Saturday is whether anyone goes with him early. Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. indicated that #4 Forged Steel would scratch, which begs the question why he was ever entered in the first place, but that leaves #2 Nitrogen as the lone candidate to apply pressure. Mark Casse’s filly certainly has loads of speed but does not need to get to the front and could easily track off the pace. I also wonder whether Team Nitrogen decides their best way of finishing well is to lay off Magnitude in the same way the Medina Spirit Team opted not to press Knicks Go in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1), which all but assured Knicks Go would win the race, but also allowed Medina Spirit to run second without pressing fast fractions. If Magnitude is two lengths clear on the backstretch, he should probably be 2/5 odds at that point, but it’s a great unknown. The other unknown is whether he will get over the track better than last year. I think this point might be slightly overblown, but his Travers jockey, Ben Curtis, reported that Magnitude did not get over the track well at Saratoga that day. It was a dry, fast track with no moisture, so it was a curious result. Some horses, like Sovereignty and Nitrogen, love Saratoga, and some horses are less inclined to the surface. All that said, Magnitude has grown up, and when you visit him, he has a presence about him now that he did not last year. He is a legitimate star in our sport and has every opportunity to win on Saturday. Should he win, he will put to bed any talks of a rivalry with Sovereignty, and he will firmly establish himself as the top older dirt horse in the world. However, I do believe Nitrogen and/or #3 Antiquarian will apply just enough pressure to open things up in the final sixteenth of a mile for someone to overtake him.

My fourth selection feels almost academic as I do not believe anyone other than the three previously listed horses will win this race on Saturday. Anyone telling you otherwise is being creative for the sake of being creative. That said, I do believe #3 Antiquarian (10-1) is the horse that has the best chance to run into something at nine furlongs. Some of his previous races are better than they look on paper, and he had a very tough go of things last time out. Do I think he has any chance to win? Not really. Do I think he could finish fourth or third should one of those previous three not show up? Of course. The son of Preservationist has always been a horse I’ve rooted for going back to when I picked him to win in the Louisiana Derby (G2), and he broke through the starting gate. I loved him in the Peter Pan (G3) and was happy for him and the whole team at Centennial Farms when he won the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1) last year, though the race comes with a significant asterisk given Mindframe losing jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. in the first 50 yards and the trouble Sierra Leone faced in that race. Still, he has come back at five years old and run well in the Westchester (G3) and then briefly got to the front in the Met Mile (G1) before his rough trip in the Suburban (G2) last time out. Jockey Manny Franco is taking over the mount from John Velazquez, who opted to take the opening on Nitrogen, but Franco has had a very solid Saratoga meet and could be sitting close to the pace. If Magnitude controls things up front, it might be a race where they just go around in place with minimal passing, which would help Antiquarian hold on for a piece at a price.

No matter who you land on, get your popcorn and get ready for the race of the year.