Exacta Bet of the Day for Saturday, August 3 at Saratoga

Four-horse Exacta Bet of the Day at Saratoga for Saturday, August 3 This Saturday at Saratoga is a loaded card headlined by five stakes races, including the $500,000 Test Stakes (G1) and featured $1 million Whitney Stakes (G1). With so much going on at The Spa in one of the biggest race days of the meet, you might want to make sure you set aside some of your wagering bankroll to bet Race 10, the De La Rose Stakes. Whitney Day’s stakes action concludes with the De La Rose for fillies and mares who have not won a graded contest in 2019. The $100,000, one-mile turf race drew a big 14-horse field, including three main-track only entrants, and is perhaps the toughest handicapping challenge on the Saturday card. Focus your attention on four top contenders in your exacta boxes, and if you can come up with the top pair you should make a solid profit in a big evenly-matched field. SARATOGA RACE 10 FOUR-HORSE EXACTA BOX CONQUEST HARDCANDY (#4) (15-1) is a live longshot to put in your exacta boxes in the hopes of really bumping of the value of your tickets at 15-1 odds on the morning line. Yes, she’s in tough against the likes of Got Stormy, but what you are getting with Conquest Hardcandy is a horse who earned a chance in this race with a nice optional claiming win earlier at this meet that raised her career mark over the Saratoga grass to two-for-two. She should be in a very good spot from a pace perspective, pressing right off the early fractions, and could hold on in the exactas based on the quality of her best career efforts. ROCK MY LOVE (#5) (9-2) is a German Group 3 winner going a mile on the turf who shows up in this realistic spot and picks up Johnny Velazquez for trainer Jonathan Thomas. She sped right to the front last out in her North American debut in the grassy, 1 1/4-mile Dance Smartly Stakes (G2) at Woodbine and lasted much of the way before tiring late in that race to fourth. Now she goes second-time out off an eight-month layoff and cuts back to perhaps a better distance at one mile. The lead should be there for her if she wants it, and wire-to-wire was the running style used in her career-best Group 3-winning outing. GOT STORMY (#8) (3-1) is horse to beat in the De La Rose after exiting third- and second-place finishes in the Jenny Wiley Stakes (G1) and Churchill Distaff Turf Mile (G2) in her last two starts for trainer Mark Casse. She’s still eligible for this restricted race based on those losses, but they were both good efforts against top horses and this ungraded restricted stakes spot should be hers to win if she shows up with her typical good effort. STELLA DI CAMELOT (#9) (4-1) exits a close third-place finish, beaten less than a length in the Intercontinental Stakes (G3) at Belmont Park, and very well could be the best of the three Chad Brown-trained contenders in this race. You can’t put together a four-horse exacta box at Saratoga without including at least one Chad Brown horse, so this one is it. She won the ungraded $200,000 Pebbles Stakes at Belmont Park last fall at this one-mile distance, and is clearly knocking on the door based on that near-miss last time out. WAGER Play the four-horse exacta box with longshot Conquest Hardcandy, live Euro invader Rock My Love, logical horse to beat Got Stormy and top Chad Brown trainee in the race Stella Di Camelot, and you should have what it takes to hit a good payoff late in the card on Whitley Day at Saratoga. $2 Exacta boxes: 4, 5, 8, 9 = $24 Best of luck! PHOTO: Got Stormy and jockey John Velazquez win the Wild Applause Stakes at Belmont Park on June 23, 2018 (c) Adam Coglianese Photography/Susie Raisher