Stephen Foster Preview Day | Anthony Pascale

Oh, this morning really, man, I can't, I, I love this kind of

stuff And, and I hope he doesn't mind me getting a little sappy

about it. But Anthony Pascal is our, our,

our guest this morning in our usual spot here at 10:20 on

Fridays about horse racing. And, and Anthony, welcome in You

and I got introduced because you, you went ahead and applied

to became a member of our, our national turf writers group.

And, and I always try to reach out to folks that I know are

getting in because it was such a huge deal for me coming from a

very different field. I was a podcaster before I got

to do this kind of stuff. And so hopefully you don't find

me too, a little too, too pushy with that kind of stuff.

But welcome in. Thanks for joining us.

Louis, it was great to hear from you.

I appreciated the message that you sent me after I, I got into

the NTAWB and I, I felt like it was something that I had always

hoped to do. I mean, listen, I wasn't always

in the horse racing industry. This was, this has only been my

job for the past year. I got hired at FanDuel a year

ago, almost to this month, and I was a newscaster in New York

City for for 15 plus years. But I had always been a huge

racing fan. I had always gone to the track

on my days off. I would watch races in between

my newscasts and I had always wanted to break into horse

racing. But as you know, it's not the

biggest field and there aren't that many jobs in the industry.

So I got lucky. I applied to FanDuel TV when

they had a couple of openings and I wound up getting a call

back. I had to go through a process.

I, I went through an audition and I wound up getting the job a

couple months later and I moved from New York City to Louisville

last year. I bought a place here and then

I'm I'm a homeowner here in Louisville now.

There you go, obviously different spots.

I was at the Wood this year in Queens and I, I love going to

Queens, but I'm not sure that I could live there.

Anthony, I'll be really honest as I have 4 young children, but

you know how how have you found Louisville?

How do you like living here? I like it.

I had always said if I left the big city it would be for a place

like Kentucky A, because how big the horse industry is here and

how there are so many people that you come into contact with

on a daily basis that just know a lot about the sport.

And listen, when I'm out, I want to talk about horse racing.

I love it, I breathe it and it's nice to be around like minded

people. And in Kentucky that's the case.

In New York City, people want to talk about, you know, right now,

the Knicks, you know, Yankees, Mets.

I always wanted to talk about horse racing and the pool.

There was, you know, in a in a huge city, not as big.

Yeah, no one wants to talk Jets or Giant.

Zach, I hope you heard Anthony say that because no one does.

It's just, it's how it works. Even in New York, they're like.

Very good point. It's.

OK, you didn't bring them up at all and I'm I'm sure that was

very intentional at FanDuel Anthony on Twitter.

If you want to go find him there as well, 15 years at at

Spectrum. Do you know Lachlan McClain?

One of the one of the guys, the dude here at Louisville, do you

know Lachlan McClain? He used to have this time slot,

believe it or not. I don't know him personally, I

know the name. I worked for Spectrum News New

York 1, which is basically the flagship station of of of the

the Spectrum news channels across the country.

New York one had existed well before Spectrum broke into a lot

of smaller markets. But yeah, I, I, I love what

Spectrum news does. I think they they bring a

certain amount of really hyper local content to communities and

I've enjoyed their their coverage since I've moved here

to to Louisville. There you go, Anthony Pascal

with us from FanDuel. Let's get into this late.

Pick 4 tomorrow. All grade threes, all $275,000

in the Purses Mile and a 16th in the Shawnee.

It's race 8:00 tomorrow for Phillies and mares who are 4 and

up. Where's my Ring will be the

morning line favorite. First time in the Peter Miller

barn. There we see a horse that could

not miss as a 2 year old in Hoosier, Philly.

The four here as well. Anthony Jin Jin of course comes

off that win in a in a boy. She was great and the double dog

there. But certainly some horses that

took back in that race as well. Where do you think you're going

to land on top here in racing? So this race I found difficult

because there are a lot of horses in here that I just do

not trust to run their A effort and in order to win this race

you're going to have to run an A race.

Jin Jin. I don't know where that race

came from in the double dog gear last time out, off a layoff and

off the trainer change, but she was super impressive.

I just don't think she can repeat that effort.

If she does, she's going to be a major player in this division

throughout the year. But that race was just too big

of an increase in speed. Figure she's never run that fast

before. And I play horses that when

we're playing horses, I'm not playing them to run the same

exact race every time they hit the track.

Some horses are going to run better on some days than others.

I don't think Jinjin, I think she was primed to run a big race

off that layoff. I don't think we get that big

effort on Saturday. There's a couple others in there

that I don't trust either, and that's why I decided to go with

a long shot. The Indiana bred the 2 Corning

Stone. This is a horse who's run at

Churchill Downs four times. She's never been worse than

second. She's got to win in three

seconds and she runs really well off layoffs and that's what

she's doing tomorrow. She hasn't run since February

the 8th. If you look back at her form,

every time she runs off a layoff, she throws a really good

race. Now there is a question as to

whether she's as good as some of these on their best day, but if

I don't think some of these horses are going to fire their

best shot, I think Corning Stone is a horse that's likely to run

her race and that should be good enough to at least hit the

board. And at a morning line price of

12:50, I'm buying there. I think royal spot right next to

her is a similar case. Yeah.

And and not necessarily the layoff part of this, but you

know, did run in the Chaluki in November, just turned 5 this

year. I I wonder with her just the

stretch out here, goal in the mile and a 16th with a daughter

of violence. Little interesting there.

But, but with the Kantharos, like you mentioned with

Corningstone, that one makes a lot more sense.

And like you said, we've seen her win four times at the

distance she's hit the board ten of those fourteen runs.

And so, yeah, I I'm with you on Corningstone.

I don't. I don't know how I feel about

the switch to Brian Hernandez Junior away from Julian, which

is interesting but also not a downgrade at all in my opinion.

But I do think Julian on Free Like a Girl on the Outside is

interesting as well. I like Free Like a Girl, but

she's one of those horses that I just don't trust.

I mean, look, all she did was run second to Torpedo and two

and three back. She ran huge last time out.

I I actually played her in the lottery and I just didn't like

the race she ran. I don't know if it was getting

back to Churchill. I just didn't think she had a

huge excuse. She was a bit wide going into

the first turn. I just didn't like the race.

And sometimes I want sometimes these horses that run well at

Oak Lawn, they don't replicate those efforts here at Churchill

Downs. We see that a lot of a lot of

times. So getting back to Churchill, I

just did not want to take a shortish price on free like a

girl. I understand why Julian Leperou

likely chose her ahead of Morningstone.

But look, Kenny Mcpeak and Brian Hernandez junior, that's a

marriage there. And you know that Kenny, anytime

he gets bright, he's going to be just fine.

Anthony Pascal with us from FanDuel at FanDuel Anthony on

the Socials Race 9 will start the late pick three.

It's Grade 3 Arlington, a mile and a 16th on the turf there at

Churchill 4 and up. Hopefully we're still on the

turf. I'm hoping, Anthony, we just

decide, you know, if there is anything going on, move the rail

out, you know, just just run these graded stakes on the on

the on the grass there tomorrow. 275,000 in the pool for this one

as well. Interesting field here as well.

I like a couple of slightly longer shots here.

Where did you end up landing on top?

This was the toughest race of the sequence for me.

I wouldn't be surprised if any of these horses won the race.

I actually chose to go with the Eight Mercanti, who is in really

good form right now. It's a really interesting story

about this horse. I had to look this up.

Blood Horse did a good feature on this trainer Brian

Nippenburg, who was a farm manager for a long time.

This horse ended up getting hurt.

They put the horse out on the farm.

Brian took care of this horse and then when the horse got

better and and was ready to return to the track, Brian had

fell in love with this horse and said can I please train this

horse? And the owner said sure.

And Brian has done an amazing job with this horse.

I mean, just missed in the Grade 1 turf classic last time out of

Churchill, won the Grade 3 Kentucky Cup Classic at Turfway

Park Before that. I was wondering if this was more

a synthetic horse. Maybe he's not as good on turf.

He proved me wrong there last time out.

So Mercanti just keeps firing these big shots that's had nice

spacing since the last race. ID fires another big shot and

he's got good tactical speed as well.

You know, Joe Ramos has the mount there, has had the mount

the last three former Conte. I do.

I hope people are paying a little bit of attention of what

he's doing up in Indianapolis. But he's a multiple win guy

every day that they run. Whit Beckman, trainer Whit

Beckman thought enough of him to leave him on Flying Mohawk in

the Derby this year. He's just one of these guys that

I think is an up and Comer had a had an accident.

If people don't know that are listening last year has come

back from that accident. Frankly, more dialed in, more

locked into his career than he was previously.

I've gotten to know Joe a little bit just from some work up at

Horseshoe and he's he's a different guy Anthony than he

was even just a year ago. Just to Mercanti's outside we

get a four year old in brilliant Birdie who has run some

unbelievable races both at Kentucky Downs and at Keeneland

and then of course comes back and he hoping 1st and goes ahead

and wins that last time. Do you think the mile is about

where this horse wants to be? Or is mile to 16th not really an

issue? I don't see that being a huge

issue. The horse is 2 for three at the

distance and if you're playing multi race wagers in, in terms

of the pick 4, the pick 5, how do you not include this horse?

The horse is 4 for four over the Churchill downstairs course.

So yeah, the horse scares me, has drawn an outside post,

always seems to come wide so gives up ground to a lot of

other horses and always makes it close.

These are tight wins. It's not like this horse is

winning by 5 or 6 lengths. So brilliant birdie at a

shortish price. I'm going to try to beat but in

my Maltese I will include. I got made to look very smart

around Thanksgiving last year when Laganos came home in the

Commonwealth turf, the grade three event then under Flavian

Pratt. You give Steve Asmussen's

training much of a shot here. I'm going to be watching

Asmussen closely tomorrow because I have to say he his

horses have not been running as expected so far this meet.

Steve Asmussen is is right now a 4% trainer at Churchill Downs in

the spring meet. He's only three for 70.

That is unheard of for a trainer of his caliber.

He's one of the best to have ever done it.

So his horses are just not firing right now.

I don't know the reason for that, but I think we need to

look for clues early, early on in tomorrow's card as to whether

his horses are running. If they are, yeah, Laganos has a

big shot and Giganti, too. I wouldn't discount who's run OK

at this distance before. But in terms of when I make top

picks, I'm not going to go there as of right now until I see that

barn heat up. Fascinating.

Yeah, I'm interested too. Like watching a floral Giroux be

at 8% right now. That's just so unusual in our

meets here at Churchill Downs, right?

And so it's fascinating watching these trends.

I also, I tend to be a guy, Anthony, in sports, you know,

I'm really love getting to do this show because I get to lot,

you know, we just talked football and hoops in the first

segment. Now we're talking horse racing.

I'm always looking at trends and I think this is part of the

horse racing brain that we get handicapping and doing these

things. But I think like an Asmussen

isn't going to be 4% forever, right?

He'll get back over 10% and frankly, to do that he's going

to have to win way more than 10% of his races.

I think Floral Giroux is going to be way above 8%.

He's going to have to win way more than 8% of his races to do

that. So I think those 2 will start to

even out. Do you have that general feeling

as well? Absolutely.

I mean, Atherson is going to win a lot of races at Churchill

Downs eventually, but right now this is a streaky game and it's

a streaky game for trainers, for owners, for horse players.

I mean, I don't know about you, but there are days where I feel

like I can't do anything right, and then the next day I show up

to the track and I feel like I can't do anything wrong.

Now, the same thing goes for jockeys and trainers.

When the barns going good, hop on, but when they're not, maybe

hop off. Race time will start the late

double it is the grade 3 blame and Anthony we have been it's

it's a mile and an eighth it's 4 and up open company there

$275,000 in the purse. One of the great things that's

happened in our sport the last 6-8 months is the returning of

all of these very, very good 3 year olds as 4 year olds to run

this year. Plus we get a very nice, you

know set of five year olds and six year olds running these

races. The older dirt male division

that we, boy, we didn't, didn't did we wring our hands for years

about everyone running off to the breeding shed and all these

things and all of a sudden we could hear like this.

This race certainly falls into that category for me.

The older horse division is stacked this year.

I mean, really looking forward to the Met Mile on Belmont Day

because that race is coming up so good.

But this race has come up really strong too.

Look, Mystic Dan has not won a race since he won the Kentucky

Derby last year, but Mystic Dan hasn't run at Churchill Downs

since then. He was putting some some strange

spots recently, including the Malibu out in California, the

Pegasus World Cup races that I wouldn't have thought Kenny

Mcpeak would have chosen for him.

He didn't run well in those races, but boy did he run good

at Oaklawn last time out we saw the old Mystic Dan return.

Do we get that same kind of performance on Saturday?

If we do, he's going to be a major factor.

He's 2 for three at Churchill Down, so obviously he likes the

race track. So I don't think he's a horse

you can discount, but I think Post Time is the horse to beat

tomorrow in the blame. Post Time has run some really,

really big races. Brittany Russell is a trainer

that maybe a lot of people here in Kentucky aren't too familiar

with. She's a 30% trainer in the

Mid-Atlantic region. She runs predominantly in

Maryland, but she knows how to train horses and this is a very,

very talented horse. Second in the Breeders Cup Dirt

Mile at Delmar back in November. They put the horse on the shelf.

Returned last time out in a in an allowance race at at Laurel

where the horse just blew it open and won by 13 legs.

Second off the layoff. I think post time, as now a 5

year old could be even better than last year.

I'm looking for a big performance from him tomorrow.

It's been, I think since Nick's go that we had a Maryland Brad

be the favorite integrated stakes at Churchill Downs.

And so certainly this is a this is a worthy, worthy horse that

you mentioned. As far as what he's going to

have to do. The other thing I'm looking at

for him because of the conditions here, he's carrying

the least amount of weight he has since October of 2023.

So he even gets a little weight help here.

I I'm with you. This is an interesting stretch

out and I mentioned Nick's go. He was a Miller Miller Miller

for years, right? Gets to the Brad Cox bar and all

of a sudden he wins the Breeders Cup Classic.

I wonder if Brittany Russell doesn't have ideas about him in

that kind of way as well. This horse has run some of his

best races at a mile, but I don't think there's any reason

why he can't get this distance. I mean, he was third in the

Whitney. He only lost by a couple of

lengths to Arthur's ride, who ran huge that day.

So post time, I don't think the distance is a factor.

I'm expecting a big effort. And you know, we talked about

Atkinson a little bit. Hall of Fame is a really nice

horse. This, this source in that race

source is always supposed to have been really good.

They paid 1.4 million for him. I mean, he's really coming into

form now. And I think as a gun runner, the

gun runners get better with age. And I think the best of Hall of

Fame is yet to come. The source ran OK in the alley.

Sheba didn't really see a huge excuse.

I wonder if he runs better tomorrow, though, at at the mile

in the eighth distance, maybe as more of an underneath horse.

I didn't like him in the wind spot, but he's going to be in my

tries. You mentioned horses earlier

that run a lot of seconds and that includes Most Wanted who

almost picked off the Clark as a three-year old in November at

Churchill has come back at in the Challenger grade three event

at Tampa before running in that aforementioned Ali she.

But by the way, no one was beating fierceness that day.

And here's the evidence, Anthony.

He set the freaking track record.

So no one was catching him that day.

Do you think he can get up? I think this might be where, you

know, Brad Cox finally gets back into the winner's circle in a

big spot finally. I don't like it so so far.

Well. He's another trainer who you

know, Brad Cox. When do you ever see him below

20%? He's 15% right now for this meet

at Churchill. Now, he's probably going to win

a couple of races on Saturday, but Most Wanted is not one of

the his horses that I will be playing.

I don't like the three consecutive second place

finishes. I don't like the fact that he

had the lead basically at the head of the stretch and gave up

the lead all three times. And now he's got to go even

farther. He's got to go the mile and an

eighth. I don't think the mile and an

eighth is the best distance for Most Wanted.

Yes, he lost to fierceness last time out.

Who may be the best older horse in the country.

We'll see, but I just felt like there was other speed in this

race. I don't think Most Wanted is

going to get an easy lead like he did in the Alley Sheba and he

still wasn't able to hold off fierceness, so I'm against Most

Wanted tomorrow. The closer is the Grade 3 Regret

Mile and an eighth on the turf for three-year old fillies,

$275,000 in the purse, as there is for every Grade 3 at

Churchill this year. Classic Cue in here.

Lush lips in here, Fiona in here.

There seems to be, in my mind at least, a pretty clear top 3

here. Anthony, is that how you see it

as well? So the horse I like is is is a

price on the morning line and I don't know if we're going to get

anywhere near 12:50 on the 6th. Totally justified.

But I'm really looking forward to playing this Philly.

I'm really looking forward to playing her tomorrow.

This is a horse who was very good as a 2 year old for Rusty

Arnold won the the PG Johnson at Saratoga in hit her first race

on the grass. Just missed in the in the

Jessamine at Keeneland to Mayday Ready, who's a very, very nice

Philly. And then in the Breeders Cup

Juvenile Turf Phillies, she just got a brutal trip.

She was boxed in at the top of the stretch.

She went wide around the first turn.

I just feel like second off the layoff, totally justified is

going to run big. She lost in nitrogen last time.

Now who's the best horse in the division?

But she also was awful layoff. She showed speed.

They went quick, early. It was also a good turf course

at Keeneland that a lot of horses didn't get over.

So I'm willing to excuse that last effort.

No excuses tomorrow. I think Joe totally justifies to

outrun her odds. Louis Saez picks up them out

there for Rusty Arnold. The two of them hitting at 26%.

There's a number over 20 / 20%. There you go.

Louis Saez hitting at 24% right now, almost certainly having the

best meet of the jockeys based here at Churchill Downs.

We'll find him at FanDuel Anthony and certainly on FanDuel

TV all day long, today, tomorrow, etcetera, at Churchill

Downs. He has abandoned New York in

favor of Kentucky people. How about that?

He's at the beat. Pascal, thanks so much for

joining us, buddy. And hopefully you won't be a

stranger to this show. Absolutely no not love to talk

to ponies anytime Louie and that continue up to good work.

There you go. Anthony Pascal joins us from Fan

Dual Racing. Really appreciate him jumping on

here.