Breeders' Cup Marathon

Of the three new Breeders' Cup race this year, the Marathon is my favorite. At the 1 1/2 mile distance the horse either gets it or not, pedigree goes a long way in determine if the winner. This year's Marathon only have a small field of 9 horses but there some interesting live longshot..

My choices for this race are #1 Church Service(10-1), #7 Big Booster (9-2), #8 Cedar Mountain(6-1) and longshot #5 Muhannak (20-1).

One thing that I learned from Friday's Breeders' Cup races is that winners of the dirt race are all coming off the pace, Church Service suit that perfectly. Church Service has demonstrated it can get the trip by winning at 1 1/2 mile on turf multiple times. His second place finish earlier this year at the Tokyo City Handicap indicated he can handle the synthetic surface at the same distance. My only concern is his long layoff, his last race was in Aug.

Big Booster is also coming off a long layoff and his last race was the Courgar II Handicap back in July. Big Booster was the odd-on favorite for that race but only finished 3rd behind Zappa. Big Booster has been very consistent on the synthetic surface and has won 2-3 with jockey Bejarano on board. Big Booster and Church Service are both trained by Mike Mitchell who owns a very impressive 24% winning percentage.

It seems like I picked all the horse that coming off a long layoff, Cedar Mountain has not race since July. Cedar Mountain trainer Drysdale is excellent in getting his horse ready after extended time off. The distance is well within Cedar Mountain range as he won at 1 3/4 mile on turf earlier this year. This lightly race 5 years old could surprise is decent odds.

Muhannak is based in England but regularly compete on synthetic surface. This is a major class jump for him but you also get him at long odds.