Belmont At Saratoga Picks | Astoria Stakes 2024

BG Stables’ impressive maiden winner French Horn will look to make her stakes debut a winning one in Thursday’s $150,000 Astoria, a 5 1/2-furlong sprint for 2-year-old fillies, on Opening Day of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at Saratoga Race Course.

The Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, which spans Thursday through Sunday, is highlighted by the 156th edition of the Grade 1, $2 million Belmont Stakes presented by NYRA Bets on Saturday, June 8. The four-day Festival will include 24 stakes races with purses totaling $10.25 million, the highest purse levels and number of stakes offered since the launch of the multi-day Festival in 2014.

The Astoria will go as Race 9 Thursday’s card which is headlined by the Grade 2, $250,000 Belmont Gold Cup in Race 10, offering a ‘Golden Ticket’ for an automatic berth into the Group 1, AUD$8.4 million Lexus Melbourne Cup on November 5 at Flemington Racecourse in Victoria, Australia.

The lucrative 10-race program also features the Listed $150,000 Jersey Girl for sophomore fillies sprinting six furlongs in Race 4; and the Listed $150,000 Tremont in Race 2. First post is 12:50 p.m. Eastern.

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Trained by Hall of Famer Mark Casse, French Horn was a gate-to-wire winner at first asking traveling 4 1/2-furlongs over Tapeta on May 12 at Woodbine Racetrack, breaking sharp and drawing clear to a 1 3/4-length score under Sofia Vives. French Horn, bred in Ontario by Narola, exited the outermost post 4 and marked off splits of 23.41 seconds and 46.43 before stopping the clock in 52.26 to garner a field-best 69 Beyer Speed Figure.

By first-crop sire Complexity, who already has three 2-year-old winners, French Horn is out of the dual graded stakes-winning Congrats mare Emma’s Encore, who in 2012 won the Grade 3 Victory Ride at Belmont Park and the Grade 1 Prioress at Saratoga for the late Hall of Fame trainer H. Allen Jerkens.

“She’s a real pretty filly and trained well from the beginning,” Casse said. “She trained well on the dirt at Ocala for us and we sent her to Woodbine as she is a Canadian-bred.

“We’ve done a lot more with our young horses this year at Ocala trying to be prepared,” added Casse. “Some break fast and some don’t but we definitely worked on that, and she came away from there running. She broke fast and settled. Sofia asked her to go, and she accelerated, and they weren’t getting to her. Her pedigree is a little more dirt than anything. I think she’ll run well in the Astoria.”

French Horn breezed back five-eighths in 58.60 Saturday over the Woodbine dirt training track.

“She worked phenomenal. She’s a filly that’s always trained well,” Casse said.

Flavien Prat picks up the mount from post 3.

Will Stroud’s Long Neck Paula [post 9, John Velazquez] was ridden out an impressive debut winner on May 2 at Churchill Downs, exiting the outermost post 11 to make every pole a winning one under Hall of Famer John Velazquez for trainer Wesley Ward.

“She’s all speed. Just a fast-looking rocket ship,” Ward said. “We’re going to hopefully take advantage of the early stakes races being short distances and judge each race one at a time and go from there.”

The Uncle Mo bay, out of the graded stakes-winning Take Charge Indy mare Take Charge Paula, was selected by Ward for $500,000 at the OBS March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training.

“It’s always a question when they come from the 2-year-old sales how they’re going to break because they don’t go into the program like I do with my yearlings,” Ward said. “It’s a good thing she’s a quick learner.”

Velazquez was aboard Long Neck Paula for a half-mile breeze in 50.25 Friday over the Oklahoma dirt training in company with Touchy [49.75], who is entered in Thursday’s Listed $150,000 Tremont at 5 1/2-furlongs for 2-year-olds.

“She came out of her race well and breezed well here this morning,” Ward said.

C Two Racing Stable’s The Queens M G [post 8, Irad Ortiz, Jr.] hopped at the start of her April 7 debut at Keeneland and brushed with a rival before making the lead through splits of 22.30 and 45.84. She stayed on stubbornly to score at odds of 45-1 in a final time of 52.44, outdueling next-out Kentucky Juvenile-winner and returning rival West Memorial by a head.

Initially trained and owned by Israel Acevedo, The Queens M G was purchased privately and transferred to the care of conditioner Saffie Joseph, Jr. She has worked back twice at Gulfstream Park, including a half-mile effort in 47.97 Saturday.

The $3,500 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale purchase is by Thousand Words – who has also produced three 2-year-old winners this year – and is out of the Grindstone mare Show Queen. Her third dam is dual graded stakes-winner Parade Queen.

Swinbank Stables’ West Memorial [post 4, Reylu Gutierrez] graduated in style in the five-furlong Kentucky Juvenile on May 2 at Churchill, stalking from third position and closing wide down the lane to take command in the final furlong to win by 1 3/4-lengths. The winning effort earned a 63 Beyer.

West Memorial is out of the Super Saver mare Vita Bella, who is a half-sister to multiple graded stakes-winner Mo Town. She was purchased for $45,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

Rounding out a talented field are maiden winners Aoraki [post 2, Keith Asmussen] for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen; Biscuitwiththeboss [post 5, Manny Franco] for conditioner Brittany Russell]; the Paul McEntee-trained pair of maiden winner Baytown Butterfly [post 7, Joseph Bealmear] and maiden Baytown Cleopatra [post 6, Dylan Davis]; and maiden Whatintheliteral [post 1, Javier Castellano], who is trained by last year’s Belmont Stakes-winning conditioner Jena Antonucci.