High North back in form for Peter Pan

What could have been a stakes void on the Saturday between the Kentucky Derby and Preakness is instead filled by Belmont Park, which offers five stakes, four of them graded, led by the Grade 1, $700,000 Man o’ War and the Grade 3, $350,000 Peter Pan. The Peter Pan is the traditional New York springboard to the Belmont Stakes.

The only other graded stakes Saturday are two Grade 3, $100,000 races – the Lazaro Barrera at Santa Anita, and the Hanshin Cup at Arlington.

Peter Pan Stakes

There is little question Core Beliefs has improved since stretching out to two turns and shedding blinkers. He was a decisive maiden winner two starts back in his first such outing, and he finished third most recently in the Santa Anita Derby, showing a company line in his past performances from that race that, in the context of this spot, has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Justify, of course, won the Santa Anita Derby over the high-class Bolt d’Oro before his terrific victory in last week’s Kentucky Derby. And fourth in the Santa Anita Derby, behind Core Beliefs, was Instilled Regard, who came back to be a rallying fourth in the Kentucky Derby.

Some may think Core Beliefs merely has to toss his recent past performances out on the track to win this race. I don’t. For starters, Core Beliefs got away with a slow pace when he recorded his maiden win. And while he finished third in the Santa Anita Derby, he was barely in the same race with Justify and Bolt d’Oro. He was beaten a city block by both.

Moreover, while Core Beliefs did finish ahead of Instilled Regard, don’t make too much of it. Huge on-the-pace or near-pace performances in the Kentucky Derby by Justify and runner-up Good Magic shouldn’t overshadow that the Derby was, in every other sense, a race that fell apart late, ideally setting it up for late-runners such as Instilled Regard.

Anyway, I like High North. High North showed potential last year, primarily in a good troubled-trip fourth in the Kentucky Jockey Club, finishing behind the subsequent winners of the Gotham and Fountain of Youth, and ahead of other subsequent stakes winners. High North’s first two efforts this year were below par, but he snapped his slump most recently with blinkers on in a solid score in the Northern Spur on the Arkansas Derby undercard. High North showed improved positional speed with those blinkers, and there isn’t a great deal of pace in this spot.

Man o’ War Stakes

Hi Happy, winner of the Pan American last time out, and Sadler’s Joy, winner of the Mac Diarmida two starts back and the Grade 1 Sword Dancer last summer, are the horses to beat in what is a deep field with plenty of alternatives. But Hi Happy must show me he can transfer his fine Gulfstream turf form to a different grass course, and I think Sadler’s Joy, who runs okay at Belmont, is simply more effective on tighter-turned turf courses.

Call Provision is my play. Call Provision was given a tall order to try and win last month’s 1 1/2-mile Elkhorn Stakes off a 5 1/2-month layoff, and if that wasn’t enough his closing kick certainly wasn’t helped by a glacier-like pace. Still, his close fourth-place finish was a fine try under the circumstances. It’s true that Call Provision doesn’t have the class lines of some others in this event, but he did improve steadily during the course of his 2017 campaign, and he might just be the equal of these now.

Hanshin Cup

Master Merion will take a lot of beating. Master Merion was a sharp second in a stakes-class turf allowance race at Keeneland in his 2018 bow. His trainer, Wesley Ward, wins with horses switching from grass to synthetic surfaces in his sleep (a heady 40-percent clip, to be precise). And while he has good speed, he can also rate, an asset Saturday since there is other speed in this field.

As tough as Master Merion figures to be, I’m giving Ghost Hunter another chance. Ghost Hunter was my play in this space to upset last month’s Henry Clark, but he ran only in spots and wound up fifth. He now gets blinkers, which should help him focus, and he narrowly missed in this race last year when also making the turf-tosynthetic surface switch.