For the ninth year in a row, America’s Best Racing is challenging some of the brightest minds in horse betting to come up with their top three picks for key races every weekend leading up to the 2025 Triple Crown and then continuing through the 2025 Breeders’ Cup World Championships. The handicappers face off in what we like to call the “Big-Race Showdown.”

The players’ picks will be posted here and a running bankroll will be kept to track their success all year long. Bankrolls will be tabulated on the basis of $2 exacta and $2 trifecta box bets of each player’s top three selections. We will also be keeping track of which player correctly selects the most winners.

Your players for the 2025 Big Race Showdown season are Edison Hatter (In The Money Media Podcast Host & Track Announcer), Thomas Kearney (Track Announcer, Shenandoah Downs), Ashley Mailloux (freelance racing analyst), Jessica Paquette (Racecaller for Parx Racing, Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation), John Piassek (Assistant Racing Secretary, Yonkers Raceway),  Roberto Rodriguez (El Potro Roberto, DRF en Espanol), Mike Somich (VSiN Host; The Magic Mike Show – The Racing Dudes), Darwin Vizcaya (Handicapper and Host), Rowan Ward (Chartcaller at Hawthorne Race Track and a Freelance writer), and Alexa Zepp (Handicapper, America's Best Racing). 

This week’s Big-Race Showdown races are: the $500,000 Coaching Club American Oaks Invitational Stakes, a 1 1/8-mile race for 3-year-old fillies at Saratoga Race Course; and the $1 million NYRA Bets Haskell Stakes, a 1 1/8-mile race for 3-year-olds that serves as the marquee race for Monmouth Park.

The Haskell Stakes will be televised nationwide on NBC during a one-hour show from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET featuring NBC Sports’ award-winning horse racing team. That show is also expected to feature the $600,000 United Nations Stakes, a key turf race at Monmouth. NYRA’s “Saratoga Live” started its on-site coverage from the Spa earlier this month, and will have shows every day of live racing covering the majority of action in upstate New York. This week, “Saratoga Live” will start Saturday FOX coverage with a show from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. featuring the $500,000 Coaching Club American Oaks Invitational Stakes and the $400,000 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap. Additional stakes races at Monmouth on a stacked Saturday card and Saratoga will be shown live on FanDuel TV.