Saratoga Racing Tips: Giant to tower over rivals

Drop in grade can see Giant come out on top

Saratoga 18:39: Once A Giant 1pt win at 3/1 or better

Ampersand is sure to take plenty of money in this $16k claimer, and while there's not much inherently wrong with his form, a win record of 1 from 16 hardly inspires confidence when dealing with a short-priced favourite.

Like a few of these, he's dropping in grade and that may well be enough to wake him up and allow him to add to that sole victory, but he isn't for me at the prices.

Icon is interesting having joined a barn that does well with recently claimed horses and he is getting blinkers on for the first time which may well enable him to show a bit more speed.

However, he's only had one run since November 2020, so whether he's quite the horse he was has to be taken on trust.

I'm going to side with one of the more lightly-raced runners in here in the shape of Once A Giant, who faced some tough foes in maiden special weights before romping home in a $40k maiden claimer at Aqueduct in April.

His last couple of runs haven't been at the same sort of level, though he's faced much tougher rivals than those he's against here and the drop back down in grade should show him in a much better light.

Once A Giant has also been gelded since last seen and gets a big rider change from a 5lb claimer to the excellent Manny Franco, who's made a strong start to the Saratoga meet and appears to be riding better than ever.