How to bet the 2020 Saratoga Oaks

Seven talented 3-year-old fillies have been entered in the second renewal of the $500,000 Saratoga Oaks on Sunday, with a slight majority exiting Saratoga’s July 19 Lake Placid (G2).

The top four finishers from the 1 1/8-mile Lake Placid — #1 Speaktomeofsummer (3-1), #4 Stunning Sky (7-2), #7 Queen’s Embrace (10-1), and #5 Key Biscayne (15-1) — are back for a rematch over 1 3/16 miles in the Saratoga Oaks.

The slightly longer journey could lend an advantage to Speaktomeofsummer, a two-time stakes winner who threaded her way through traffic to win the Lake Placid by a head. This long-winded daughter of Summer Front should handle an extra sixteenth of a mile just fine.

But the Lake Placid wasn’t the deepest race, and some talented newcomers will join the fray in the Saratoga Oaks.

#6 Ricetta (9-2), a Juddmonte Farms homebred, won her first two starts in Great Britain before she finished third in the 1 5/16-mile Musidora (G3) at York. The cutback in distance can make this daughter of Camelot a contender in her U.S. debut for trainer Bill Mott.

#2 Enola Gay (2-1) will also be formidable, if the 1 3/16-mile journey doesn’t trip her up. A debut winner at Kentucky Downs in September, Enola Gay recently returned from an eight-month layoff to win Keeneland’s 1-mile Appalachian (G2) in the stakes-record time of 1:33.97. Trained by Shug McGaughey, who has gone 5-for-17 (29%) at Saratoga this summer, Enola Gay has tactical speed and can be a pace-tracking win candidate under Saratoga’s leading jockey, Jose Ortiz.

But the biggest threat might come from the Godolphin homebred #3 Antoinette (6-1). The daughter of Hard Spun has shown promise on dirt, where she placed in the Fair Grounds Oaks (G2) and the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1), but arguably her best race to date came when she finished third in the 1-mile Wonder Again (G3) on grass at Belmont Park. After she tracked a modest pace, Antoinette held on gamely to finish third.

Antoinette also broke her maiden over the Belmont turf course in the fall, so there’s no reason to think she can’t be effective back on grass. In a race without much speed, Antoinette should sit a comfortable trip setting or stalking slow fractions. From there, she can vie for victory at a solid price.

Let’s key Antoinette in the exacta and trifecta, with Enola Gay and Ricetta in the other slots.

$3 exacta: 3 with 2,6 ($6)
$3 exacta: 2,6 with 3 ($6)
$1 trifecta: 3 with 2,6 with 1,2,4,6 ($6)
$1 trifecta: 3 with 1,2,4,6 with 2,6 ($6)
$1 trifecta: 2,6 with 3 with 1,2,4,6 ($6)
Total: $30

Good luck!