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Jeremy Plonk: Saratoga Spot Plays | Sunday, July 26, 2025

by Jeremy Plonk

July 26, 2025

The Saratoga racing week wraps up Sunday after the buzz of a Jim Dandy Saturday. Turf route mares go at it in the featured Grade 2 $250,000 Glens Falls Stakes, which will be Race 7.

Saratoga | Race 3 | 2:18 pm ET

#6 Royal Guard (9-2 morning line odds) makes his career debut at a mile on turf with a fascinating pedigree. By a Champion 2-Year-Old on dirt in Essential Quality, the female side of the lineage is all European grass. His third dam (great-great-grandmother) named Shadayid was a multiple Group 1-wining miler overseas, including the 1991 English One Thousand Guineas. Trainer Brad Cox is winning north of 40% of his races in July. Win bet #6. Daily Double 6-7 to next play.

Saratoga | Race 4 | 2:52 pm ET

#7 Art Fair (7-2 morning line odds) is fast enough to clear from the outside post in this 1-mile race out of the Wilson Chute. Jockey Flavien Prat has been slumping at the Spa of late, but a one-day road trip to Del Mar on Saturday might clear the mind and get him back on task. He’s been far and away the Spa’s best rider out of the Wilson Chute, winning 29% with a colony-best 10 victories since its inception. Win bet #7.

Saratoga | Race 7 | 4:35 pm ET

#2 No Show Sammy Jo (9-2 morning line odds) was even-money favorite against several of these at Aqueduct and was nursed along too casually on the front end. She kicked nicely in the stretch only to be run down by a flying return-rival La Mehana, but she actually galloped out past that one in a show that she wasn’t tired, but rather didn’t have the momentum at the wire. The price inflates today and it’s time to buy hoping Manny Franco either rides more aggressively or allows a fresh face to set the tone and pounce first. Win bet #2. Exacta key-box 2 with 1,6.