'Will take some catching' - Shane Ketteridge's two best bets at Saratoga on Saturday night

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Explora
9.36pm Saratoga Race 9
1pt win

Remember Mamba
10.52pm Saratoga Race 11
1pt win

The Grade 1 Test Stakes is a fiercely competitive affair and a stepping stone towards the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint in late October.

Bob Baffert is seeking a fourth victory in this race after Indian Blessing (2008), Contested (2012) and Gamine (2020) all won for the Hall of Famer, and he saddles the high-class filly Explora, who has been working well at Churchill Downs in recent weeks.

This daughter of Blame had a fruitful two-year-old campaign and put in a solid effort to finish fourth in the Kentucky Oaks on her first big target as a three-year-old.

She didn’t quite get home over that mile and an eighth trip that day so connections dropped her down to this seven furlong distance last time out where she took care of the re-opposing On Time Girl by one-and-a-quarter lengths.

She went wire-to-wire and her early gate speed should be a useful tool in this event as Flavien Prat will look to get her out and away quickly from stall seven.

Explora will take some catching from there on her bid for a first Grade 1 success.

European raider Pacific Avenue is a late scratching in the Saratoga Derby which leaves a field of nine three-year-old colts going to post over a mile and three sixteenths on the turf.

Title Role and West End Kid are to be respected but this can go to the Cherie DeVaux-trained, Remember Mamba, who was only beaten a nose and a neck by those two horses in the Belmont Derby here last month.

He had to come five wide and finished his race off well so, with a better trip, he can overturn the form on those two over this slightly longer distance.

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