Breeders' Cup Juvenile fair odds: Who can move forward?

The Breeders' Cup Juvenile is a tough race to figure out who will win, but I am sure of one thing. The winner will have run a better race in the Breeders' Cup than in their prep race.

That might seem obvious, but there are plenty of Grade 1 races where the winner does not improve off his or her last. Given the lightly raced nature of this group, that's definitely the expectation here.

So who is most likely to improve? For the purpose of this exercise, I'm zeroing in on my top five contenders, whom I see as having a 75 percent chance of winning the race. These are General Partner, Locked, Muth, Prince of Monaco and Timberlake.

Of those, only Muth and Timberlake have moved forward on both Brisnet Speed Ratings and Ragozin Sheets. General Partner did not move forward on Brisnet but did on Ragozin. Neither Locked nor Prince of Monaco moved forward on either figure in their last starts.

For that reason, I have Grade 1 American Pharoah winner Muth and Champagne (G1) winner Timberlake as my most likely winners of the Juvenile. Timberlake has a slight edge based on the better Ragozin figure.

The other things I like about Timberlake are that he will not be favored and that if you forgive his second-place finish in the Hopeful (G1) then he looks especially strong.

To me, this is shades of 2016, also at Santa Anita, when Classic Empire looked much the best if not for the Hopeful debacle. Classic Empire returned to Kentucky to win the Breeders' Futurity (G1) at Keeneland that year. This year, Timberlake stayed in New York. That means the Juvenile will be his first two-turn test, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Muth is dangerous, but I just can't imagine he will be worth the price given connections and the big win locally. And from a figures standpoint, he's only "one of the ones."

Locked and Prince of Monaco both ran races two back that were better than what we saw last out. Eye-test wise, I still do like Locked, so have him a touch more likely than Prince of Monaco. 

Of course final workouts this weekend, post positions, and a better understanding of the pace scenario will inform final thoughts, but I can't imagine a scenario where Timberlake isn't the play. The real question will be, how low does Muth go, and does that make it worth trying to beat him out of the verticals?

Mike Shutty's Super Screener does a great job of identifying the handicapping factors that best help identify good and bad bets in Breeders' Cup races. This year, the Breeders' Cup Everything package includes not only Super Screener but also my fair odds for all 14 Breeders' Cup races.