US Handicappers Corner: Parx thriller perhaps not all it seems

There were some Breeders' Cup clues to be had over the weekend
Simon Rowlands takes a look a the weekend's Stateside action, including some stirring stuff from Pennsylvania.
As the weekend showed, you don't necessarily need a lot of runners to provide a stirring contest, for contests don't come much more stirring than the G1 $1m Cotillion Stakes run at Parx on Saturday.
Just four showed up for the eight-and-a-half furlong event on dirt, but they included 127-rated Questing and the undefeated 122-rated My Miss Aurelia, and that pair went at it neck-a-neck in the closing stages before the latter gained the day by a head.
It was a great spectacle, but not necessarily a great guide to the respective merits of the protagonists.
Questing was conceding 7 lbs to her rival and was, oddly, not asked to turn the screw until late on. She ambled through the first half mile in over 50 seconds, having gone more than 4 seconds faster in running away with the G1 Alabama over a furlong and a half further at Saratoga the time before.
My Miss Aurelia is a nippy type, as well as a very able filly, and her finishing speed (expressed as % of average race speed) of 102.4% was just enough to land the spoils.
The overall time of the Cotillion was in the region of 30 lbs slower than might have been expected of horses of this calibre, and the proximity of 108-rated Dixie Strike in third provides another reason to take the bare form with a pinch of salt.
Weight differentials were also a factor in the other $1m race at Parx, the G2 Pennsylvania Derby over nine furlongs, a race run at only a slightly quicker pace than the Cotillion.
Handsome Mike, beaten in nine successive Graded races previously, stepped up a bit on previous form to win, but, in receiving 8 lbs and 10 lbs from second and third Macho Macho and Golden Ticket, does not even come out the best horse on the day.
Handsome Mike ran to 113, and this could well prove to have been his Super Bowl, while Macho Macho (120) and Golden Ticket (119) should at least continue to have something to say in the greatly weakened three-year-old male division.
The pace in the $300k six-furlong Gallant Bob Stakes was in marked contrast, with the leaders going through the first quarter in 21.41 seconds and the half in 43.95 seconds. Trinniberg sat close to the lead before going on in the straight but was "mugged" by deep closer Well Spelled (now rated 116).
The first two's finishing speeds of 88.3% and 86.4% (something in the mid-90s would be customary) underlines just how taxing the early gallop was, and Trinniberg (rated 119) could still have a good sprint in him another day.
The Gallant Bob went off at exactly the same time as the Gallant Bloom over at Belmont, the latter $200k G2 handicap going the way of bottom-weighted Dust And Diamonds (rated 114) from Judy The Beauty (117), with Musical Romance and Turbulent Descent underperforming.
At Delaware, Optimizer took a further step up the turf racing tree with a decisive success in the $200k G3 Kent Stakes, though his 115 rating will leave him plenty to find with the pick of the Europeans come Breeders' Cup time.
At a lower level, Awesome Feather took her unbeaten run to 10 in the $85k Nasty Storm Stakes at Belmont. The Chad Brown-trained filly is now rated 125 and well-deserving of her place back in G1 company.
And let's not forget the largely unsung sprinter Guam Typhoon, who landed his eighth consecutive race (all of them non-Graded) in the $100k Changing Times Stakes at Penn. The front-running six-year-old is beating up smart rivals, where once those rivals were little better than modest, and is now rated 120.
There is no shortage of top-class action to look forward to Stateside this coming Saturday, with five G1s at Belmont. Pick of them could prove to be the $1m TVG Jockey Club Gold Cup, but that is amply supported by the $600k Flower Bowl Invitational and the $600k Joe Hirsch Turf Classic, to name but two.
Timeform will be providing previews and post-race analysis of the big events on this site.