US racing tips: Shane Ketteridge with his two best Saturday bets

Express Train
11.33pm Santa Anita
3pts win

Sharapova
1.36am Santa Anita
1pt win

Santa Anita plays host to some top stakes action on Saturday with four valuable races on the card and in the $200,000 Grade 2 Californian Stakes (11.33) we have the course specialist Express Train bidding to gain a fifth victory at the course.

John Shirreffs’s classy five-year-old son of Union Rags has only finished out of the first three on three occasions from 17 starts which includes seven victories, four of which were in this grade, and he has also won at the top level.

Three of those Grade 2 wins came here at Santa Anita, two of which were over this distance of a mile and a furlong, and he comes into this in red-hot form having won his last three races at the track and gained his first Grade 1 win in the Santa Anita Handicap last time out.

Express Train's trainer has sung his praises since he was a two-year-old and this tough performer is at his best when able to press the pace against a small field, which he has here.

Victor Espinoza takes the ride and he was on board for those last three wins so it would be something of a surprise should he be defeated in a race that looks there for the taking.

Race ten at Santa Anita is the competitive Grade 2 Santa Margarita Stakes for the female division over a mile and a furlong on the dirt and features some high-class fillies and mares fighting for the $200,000 prize. One who can go well is the filly drawn in stall six, Sharapova, who is stepping into Graded company for the first time.

As a four-year-old she is lightly raced having had just the six starts and, with her first five runs being at this track, she has plenty of course experience and broke her maiden tag in a maiden optional claimer here last May.

She’s race-fit and comes into this off the back of a comfortable win in a black-type event at Sunland Park last time so she should put up a bold show for Peter Eurton and his team.

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