US Weekend Preview: Ben's Cat to pounce in the Pennsylvania

Graeme previews the best of the US action

Timeform's Graeme North has found three bets for you on an action-packed weekend in North America...

Saturday's offerings in the States will flabbergast those who complain there is too much racing with Britain with approaching 40 - yes, forty - meetings scheduled to take place. Quality is much harder to find, however, and in truth it is very much Second-Rate Saturday hard on the heels of a memorable Memorial Monday.  

There is a Graded race at Woodbine, the G2 Hendrie Stakes (16:25 local time, 21:25 BST) for older fillies and mares over six and a half furlongs on the all-weather track, but it doesn't appeal as a betting medium other than maybe for a lay of the 3 Morning Line favourite Delightful Mary who is having her first run for fourteen months and who, though she did win over this trip back in 2011, now takes a sharp drop back in trip having been kept to a mile or longer since.

Then again, her form is pretty much as good as anything else in the race and several of these met recently without any conviction that the result would be the same if they took each other on again, so we'll turn out attention to Penn National where the Pennsylvania track hosts a better-than-normal card and there look to be decent bets in all the main races.

First of them is Ben's Cat in the second race, the Pennsylvania Governor's Cup Handicap (18:28, 23:28 BST) over five furlongs on the turf which is expected to be fast. Ben's Cat shares top weight with four others - Icon Ike, Chamberlain Bridge Bridgetown and Kyma - in an eleven-runner field and of those Chamberlain Bridge is likely to be his most dangerous rival just as he was last year at Parx in the autumn when Ben's Cat narrowly came out on top in the Turf Monster Handicap.

Ben's Cat was conceding 2 lb that day, so is better off at the weights here, and also came from further back in a relatively steady affair, so quite possibly has a bit more in hand than a strict reading of the result suggests. Chamberlain Bridge is approaching peak form having reared badly and lost all chance behind Icon Ike on his reappearance and then finished strongly in a muddling affair in the rain at Churchill last time, when Bridgetown, who is probably being readied for Saratoga as usual, was third. Unlike his rivals, however, multiple stakes winner Ben's Cat can be relied upon to knock out Timeform ratings of 116 or thereabouts like clockwork and that is nearly always a notch too high for all his rivals.  
The second horse that takes our eye is Macho Macho in the third race, the Mountainview Handicap over nine furlongs (18:56, 23:56 BST). He's been put in as second favourite at 4.5 on the Morning Line which is somewhat surprising as he boasts comfortably the best chance at the weights by our reckoning and is taking a drop in class - 7lb as measured by Timeform's proxy ratings, a system of measurement akin to official handicap marks - after running in two Graded races this year.

Those two races haven't done him justice as he was caught back a bit further than ideal on his reappearance at Fair Grounds and nearly got upsides the winner in the straight before fading, and then got squeezed out badly in a first-bend scrimmage at Churchill last time and was never well placed in a steadily-run race as a consequence. The booking of red-hot rider Joel Rosario for last year's West Virginia Derby winner is surely a signal of intent and he can prove too strong for Pants On Fire. Darley representative Rattlesnake Bridge looks a weak favourite who has been priced up more on 2011 form than 2013 form after missing all last year and though he won at Gulfstream in March he was put well and truly in his place by Cross Traffic and Flat Out at Belmont last time. 

The final bet is in the highlight contest on the card, the Penn Mile Stakes (19:26, 00:26 BST) for three-year-olds on the turf. Favourite on the Morning Line at 3 is the 2012 Breeder's' Cup Juvenile Turf runner-up Noble Tune. He's entitled to great respect as he has won both his races since, getting up in the last stride from a seemingly-impossible position at Tampa on his reappearance before asserting readily in the G2 American Turf at Churchill on Derby Day. The form of the Juvenile Turf has been let down enough since to realise that Noble Tune is vulnerable to something progressive, however, and that rival promises not to be either of the stablemates Charming Kitten (ninth in the Kentucky Derby last time) or Jack Milton (won a G3 at Keeneland last time) but Rydilluc whose fourth in the G1 Blue Grass at Keeneland last time when Charming Kitten was second disguises how well he ran.

For most of the second half of that race Rydilluc looked the most likely winner but he was run down very late by three horses that raced well off the early pace unlike himself, and had he hung on that would have been his fourth win in a row. He's unbeaten on turf, ran out an impressive and easy winner of a G3 at Gulfstream in March when Charming kitten was second and helpfully seems very likely to get his own way in front over an unusually sharp mile on a track with a very short straight.  

Recommended bets:

Back Rydilluc in the Penn Mile
Back Ben's Cat in the Pennsylvania Governor's
Back Macho Macho in the Mountainview

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