If Monmouth was half as miserable this afternoon as Brooklyn was, I feel awfully sorry for all the people gathered down south: the Monmouth folks who worked so hard to pull this off; the patrons huddling for a warm and dry spot without their forbidden umbrellas; the horses running in the mud; and the jockeys trying to win races in awful conditions. I am feeling slightly less regretful about my decision to stay in the five boroughs tomorrow and watch/bet from the sanctuary of Aqueduct. Think that’s the first time anyone’s referred to the Big A as a sanctuary?

Below are my choices for races 4 – 8. Remember: these are not necessarily the horses that I think will win, or even the horses that I will bet; these are the horses that I would like to win.

I buy my past performances from Brisnet, who for each entry offers a “Prime Power” number, based on the horse’s past performances, for ranking the horses in the race. I have no idea how the PP is computed, but the number in parentheses following each paragraph is the Brisnet PP.

Juvenile Fillies: My friend Jessica (not Railbird Jessica; another Jessica) loves the races (but doesn’t bet) and she visits me in Saratoga every summer. We are both English teachers, we both like racing, and we both are avid Scrabble players. Before heading to the Spa last summer, we got in a game during which Jessica played “croft” (double letter score for the C), a fairly unusual word. Lo and behold, off we go to the track and A to the Croft is entered in the Adirondack. She finished second by third-quarters of a length to More Happy, one of the Baffert horses that shipped east following Zayat’s dissatisfaction with the way the synthetic track at Del Mar was playing. She’s been second in her last two races, and she’s my choice. (4th)

Juvenile: This one’s tough for me. I am a dedicated bettor of Nick Zito two-year-olds. They generally cost me money, but when they add to the bankroll, I am a happy woman. I can’t figure out my affinity here; Zito is not the friendliest guy on the track, but there’s something about him I find mesmerizing, and he’s such a Saratoga guy. Yeah, yeah, that’s it.

So that leads me to War Pass. And emotional attachments aside, there seems to be good reason. He’s undefeated in three starts and has won by comfortable margins every time, and his Brisnet speed figs dominate everyone else’s in the race except Pyro, who finished behind him in the Futurity.

But then there’s Tale of Ekati. I loved the race he ran in the Sanford, and he was terrific in the stretch in the Futurity; he showed a lot of maturity as Coa changed paths a couple of times. I like Barclay Tagg fine, but he’s not a deal-maker or deal-breaker for me. And there’s that whole cat horse thing.

But I’m going with my New York guy, and hoping that he gets a BC victory on Saturday. War Pass. (1st).

Filly and Mare Turf. My friend Jonathan and I watch the Preakness every year at our favorite bar in the neighborhood (two years ago, we had our birthday party there on Preakness Day; our party favors were $2 win tickets on every horse in the race); we hit the OTB in the neighborhood before heading over. I generally don’t spend a ton of attention to the undercard, but this year I flipped through the entries and there in the Gallorette Handicap were Precious Kitten and A True Pussycat. Jonathan, after spending many days at the races with my family and me and well aware of our proclivity for betting cat horses, coined the term “catzacta,” and for the hell of it, I boxed them. Woo-hoo! $46.20 later, I was a happy woman.

All of this to get you to understand why I’m picking a 30-1 filly. Precious Kitten. (2nd)

Sprint: I was tempted to say that I don’t have a dog in this fight, but given Michael Vick’s recent difficulties, it’s a rather unfortunate metaphor. No major attachments in the Sprint, though; the Mott/Desormeaux connection was a monster at Saratoga, but there’s Zito again, with Commentator, who ran one of the best races I’ve seen against St. Liam in the ’05 Whitney. Going with Commentator. (3rd)

I’ll be back later with wishful thinking for races 8 – 11, along with the betting picks I’ll submit to the friendly TBA competition.

One note on this afternoon’s ESPN2 broadcast: why oh why did we have to be subjected to Kenny Mayne’s inane breeding segment again?