Arlington Million 33

Every year since I've worked at ABR, the middle of August has been circled in red. The weekend of the 15th is my favorite U.S. racemeet of the year, the Arlington Million.

While this year's International Festival of Racing races don't really have any huge stand outs, they are very competitive this year. When writing a piece that will go up later in the week on ABR I had a hard time cutting the field down to three horses each because they are so competitive. 

One thing that I always love about the Million day races is that it brings in some horses that I really like over in Europe (in past years, horses like Side Glance and Dandino) and this year is no different.

Dandino

Side Glance

Three horses that I am really excited about seeing are the tough Panama Hat, the brilliant (yet inconsistent) Highland Reel, and the progressive Wedding Vow. All three are horses whose careers I have followed closely for over a year (or in the case of two of them, since they debuted as 2-year-olds). 

But Million week won't just be about those three.

While my favorite regulars (see photo above, ha) won't be showing up, there will be some familiar faces that I have seen multiple times at other tracks. One of those is Big Blue Kitten. The big goofball has been around for a long time and will be running in the Million on Saturday. If he wins the Million, he'll be the first horse in over 20 years to do the United Nations-Million double.

Then you have horses like Hyper. While I've never seen Hyper in person, I remember 2013 when Ken Ramsey was talking the horse up after he won the Arlington Million with Real Solution. According to Ramsey, trainer Chad Brown has been very high on this older horse so it will be fun to see how he does in the American St. Leger.

Team Valor is sending Euro Charline back over this year in what looks to be another cracking renewal of the Beverly D. While the race doesn't look as strong as last year's (which was a freak of a race for a non-Breeders' Cup event) she'll still have to face some strong fillies if she wants to go on and win her second Beverly D. If the filly wins this year's race, she'll be the first one to win two renewals of the Beverly D.

If you're in the Chicago area on Saturday, I highly recommend you stop by the track to watch some high quality racing. If you aren't but want to watch the races, you can catch them on the internet on a bunch of different betting sites and I believe one of the racing channels (HRTV/TVG) will also be showing them live. Good luck!