Saturday is Whitney Stakes day at Saratoga Race Course. The main event is one of 14 races on a massive afternoon of racing in upstate New York, and the program is one of the best assembled anywhere in the country to this point in the year.

I’m here with a handful of horses that could pop at a price Saturday afternoon. With big fields signed on all day long, you only need to be right once or twice to have a very good day. We’ll focus on runners at 6-1 odds or higher on the morning line, and here are the ones I’m most interested in …

Race #3, $130,000 Allowance-Optional Claiming, 1 1/8 miles, dirt, 12:57 p.m. ET

#5 Classicist (8-1 morning-line odds): We’ll start fairly early, as Todd Pletcher has a pair of runners in this nine-furlong optional claimer. He also saddles morning-line favorite #4 Vibe, who makes sense, but Classicist definitely appeals to me, too, and at a much bigger price.

We last saw him in the Grade 2 Suburban Stakes Presented by Subourbon Life, where he didn’t do much running. However, he was up against it that day, going against some very good older horses. Most importantly, though, he was running without Lasix (furosemide), and he’s shown he’s not the same horse without that medication. Focus only on the races with Lasix, and you have a runner that’s 3-for-4 with a second (all at today’s 1 1/8-mile distance).

Classicist has prior races that would make him competitive here, and he comes back to what absolutely hits me as the correct level. Perhaps Vibe is the more talented stablemate, but 8-1 strikes me as way too big a price on this son of Curlin. If you’re playing exotics (either horizontal or vertical), he is a must-use.

Race #4, $120,000 Allowance, 1 1/16 miles, turf, 1:34 p.m. ET

#6 Scratch It (6-1 ML): We’ll go to the turf, and when it comes to this one’s last effort, I think you can … scratch it out of the form (I hear you booing, and I’m not sorry).

Scratch It exits an eventful renewal of the Wild Applause Stakes where several horses went down. She was checked multiple times that day, and that race hits me as a throwout for pretty much any runner that comes out of it. Two starts back, she was an easy winner at Horseshoe Indianapolis, and earlier in her career, she earned black type with a pair of stakes placings.

This is certainly a much easier spot for her. Given that 2-1 morning-line favorite #1 Consumer Sentiment hasn’t run since May 2025, I find it easy to take a stand against that one. At or near the 6-1 morning line price, Scratch It hits me as an extremely interesting value play.

Fourstardave entrant Capitol Hill (Eclipse Sportswire)

Race #10, $750,000 Fourstardave Stakes, One mile, turf, 5:14 p.m. ET

#6 Capitol Hill (10-1 ML): We’ll finish up with a horse to watch in one of the biggest turf races of the meet. If you subscribe to the age-old notion, “pace makes the race,” Capitol Hill looks very, very interesting in the Fourstardave at a big price.

Yes, he’s pace-dependent, but there’s quite a bit of early speed signed on here. #1 Rhetorical, #2 Mi Bago, and #4 Classic Q all figure to go early, and #5 Deterministic won’t be too far back. This feels like the best race shape Capitol Hill has ever gotten, and while the inner turf sometimes penalizes closers, I can’t sleep on the possibility that the Fourstardave falls apart.

Capitol Hill was fourth in the Grade 3 Kelso Stakes behind a few of these, but they went pretty slow up front that day. I think he’s going to get a very fast pace here, and if he does, he could definitely be heard from late.