3 minute read
The Racing and Sports Priceline for the 2020 Satsuki Sho.
The Satsuki Sho - Japan's version of the 2000 Guineas - is invariably a hot contest but it looks a particularly deep edition in 2020, highlighted by the clash of two unbeaten colts, Contrail and Salios .
Assessed Prices: Salios $2.80; Contrail $2.80; Satono Flag $7.00; Darlington Hall $26.00.
The Racing and Sports Pricing Model marks them on a very steep curve with the fourth line in the betting quickly out to $26.00 - such is the firepower at the top.
Salios and Contrail account for 72% of the Racing and Sports market. Early reference markets out of Japan have the pair $4.00 and even money - 75% - so there is rough agreement there.
Where R&S and those expected local prices differ is in the gap between that top pair with nothing to split them according to the Priceline.
That makes Salios the bet. He improved with each of three wins last term, culminating in a strong win in the Futurity Stakes where everything pointed to a performance right out of the top drawer.
Few have entered the Satsuki Sho already so well performed and he looks well worth backing to go on with all that promise.
Contrail also won three from three last season and signed off with a Group One success.
His Hopeful Stakes win is a good piece of form but it's the Tokyo win prior, by five lengths under Ryan Moore, that gives the biggest clue as to how good he really might be. The answer to that question is very.
He ran blistering time there and looks well up to winning a typical Guineas based on that - this, however, may not be a typical Guineas.
Satono Flag is the other runner marked in single figures having won a trial very nicely and in an ordinary year he would look a terrific chance to add the Guineas off that. He faces a couple of potential superstars in 2020 though and it looks like taking something special to walk away a winner.
