in Triple Crown Articles

What a race we have for horse of the year in 2006. Of course the sentimental favorite will beBarbaro, but a host of others have now shown they too deserve it.

This past weekendInvasor, the South American invader, stayed unbeaten in North America (3-for-3) and showed he is quite an animal. Invasor has now won the Pimlico Special, the Suburban Handicap and Saturday he held on to beatSunriver by a nose in the Whitney Stakes at Saratoga.

So in just three races he has vaulted himself into the horse-of-the-year voting. Invasor has won over a million in purses this year and has beaten America’s best older horses.

Lava Man, the Cinderella horse on the west coast, will lose votes if he does not compete with the best the east has to offer. The left coast is weak in the older horses division.

Ok so now the three year olds. There's Barbaro of course the undefeated Derby winner. Now addBernardini winner of the Preakness and just off a seven-length win in the Jim Dandy at Saratoga- both huge wins, andBluegrass Cat who last Sunday ran away from a pretty good field at Monmouth Park in the one million dollar Haskell Invitational.

Bluegrass Cat finished second in the Derby and the Belmont Stakes and may now be living up to the promise he showed as a three-year-old.

Birnardini and Bluegrass Cat may meet in the Travers at Saratoga on August 26th. That would turn out to be the race of the year so far and would pack them it at the Spa.

This Saturday at Arlington Park (Ill), it will be their race day of the year, three Grade I races are on the card. The Arlington Million is the feature event. Also on tap is the Beverly D and the Secretariat all will attract large fields.

For a free pick on the Arlington Million which will be on national TV, email me at the address below and I’ll fire it out to you on Friday.

FURLONGS:

-Remember the horse that sold for 16 million dollars this spring at the Fasig-Tipton sales at Calder? The name wasGreen Monkey (named after a golf course). Well, the horse has a pulled gluteal muscle and trainer Todd Pletcher said he would not run the horse at Saratoga as planned. Saratoga is usually the coming out place for the top three-year-olds of this year.

-A friend of mine and a jockey that I have used in the past to ride horses I owned, Iggy Puglisi, was injured in a race at Los Alamitos in California. He will be out about six weeks and should be back in action at Santa Anita this fall. Get well Iggy!

For horse racing picks from Pete, emailjrclemente@hotmail.com.