The anticipation of five Grade I races on Super Saturday is upon us and here are a few possibly unrecognized stats that are worth bearing in mind.

Bill Mott surged last week with 4 wins and now has a total of 5 out of 15 starts in the first 12 days. With Kent D on the bench the vet from Dakota has been mixing and matching his riders. Mott and Julien Leparoux have had a couple of winner’s circle photos taken so far. Mott now leads the earning parade with over $230,000.

Another trainer whose hard work is paying off this meet is William Badgett Jr. Out of his horses’ 8 starts 3 have won and another placed and for those of us who follow this type of thing, he is 2 for 4 on the turf.

Other conditioners of note include Rudy Rodriguez – 8 wins out of 21 starts and Barclay Tagg with 5 wins out of 20 starts.

After 12 racing days Ramon Dominguez continues to lead the jockey colony with 19 wins out of 81 starts and so far he hits the board at over 60 percent. Following in the win column is John Velazquez with 13 out of 70 starts and Rajiv Maragh with 12 wins out of 67 starts. David Cohen has 7 out of his 10 triumphs on the turf courses where he has raced a total of 25 times this meet.

Rajiv Maragh photo courtesy of NYRA

The only triple digit return on a $2 investment last week came on Thursday in the 7th when Catchapenny K. blew by the field at the eighth pole under apprentice rider Jason Garcia. We had seen the horse show that he belonged at Saratoga but was a major live long shot at 51.50/1. In hindsight, carrying only 107 lbs with the 10 lb bug allowance was a deciding factor in his fastest finish. 8 out of the other 9 horses carried between 116 and 120 lbs in the 25,000 claimer on the turf. Congratulations to Mr. Garcia and Robert Ribaudo on their respective first wins of the meet.

During the first seven racing days at Belmont’s Fall Meet Ramon Dominguez has been finishing in the money at a titanic 67 percent clip. After 52 starts he is in a familiar position: tied with John Velazquez with 11 wins out of 67 total races. In a memorable stretch of nine races in which he had mounts on Wednesday into Thursday, Dominguez won or placed second in 8 straight and finished third aboard an 18/1 shot in the other race.

Dominguez appears to have a slight case of seconditis, placing 19 times out of the 52 starts. On the other hand, out of 67 races so far, Ramon has been involved in a whopping 30 exactas and over half the trifectas. To be fair, he gets a leg up on his share of favorites but the Fall Meet is not exactly the inner dirt at Aqueduct.

Between 1/1 and 4/25 of this year, Dominguez won on over 30 percent of his mounts at the Qzone Park oval. In contrast, the racing at Belmont right now includes a bevy of top riders, trainers and horses. In addition to John Velazquez other jockeys who are poised to make a run at the title include Cornelio Velasquez (8 wins), Rajiv Maragh (7 wins) Alan Garcia (6 wins), and Javier Castellano (6 wins) among others.

To this point Dominguez is also leading the earnings parade after capturing the feature GI Garden City on Check the Label on Saturday and the G3 The Nobel Damsel aboard Strike The Bell on Sunday. He completed the late double on both of those cards with returns of $10.00 on Saturday and 49.60 on Sunday.

Dominguez wins by a nose aboard the favorite Academy Run in the 10th at Belmont on Saturday 9/18/10 photo courtesy of NYRA

Earlier this year Dominguez surpassed the 4,000-win plateau since immigrating to the US from his native Venezuela in 1996. He is a one heck of a rider in the prime of his career, but a small knock would be that he has yet to capture a Triple Crown race and only one Breeders’ Cup win out of 20 mounts. In 2009, he ranked third on the national earnings list for jockeys and he is well on the way for a high rank this year.  Look for him to capture the Fall Meet title when he elects to stay in New York and the competition points to Keeneland and Churchill.

Having little success at handicapping the Derby Under Card and faced with an eighty minute wait for the big one, I turned to the 10th at Belmont desperately seeking some value. A MSW on the inner turf going 6 panels, my favorite handicapper had landed on Solar Panel at 16/1 and I tended to agree with him. Trainer Thomas Bush was giving Mike Luzzi a leg up in this wide open affair. This was added value because I know from experience that the Luzzi is capable of bringing home a winner in a NYRA nightcap. The race unfolded like this: Solar Panel led from the gate and battled Linda Rice trainee Hear the Footsteps throughout. In the shadow of the wire hard charging Mighty Tuff with Victor Santiago urging nailed Solar Panel (that’s him with his tongue hanging out) on the line.

Mighty Tuff nails Solar Panel (on the inside) Belmont 10th 5/1/10 Photo: NYRA

Well we had a run for our money from Solar Panel. Some of my greatest pleasures at the race track come from watching a losing horse (at high odds) run a close race. Solar Panel and Mike Luzzi were giving it their all and I didn’t mind losing a few bucks on the win. The healthy show price came back $9.80 which more than made up for the wager in the first place.

We are happy to announce that you can pick up a copy when you are out at beautiful Belmont Park. The books will be  on sale at the two gift shops.