THERE are two significant 10-furlong Grade 1 races on dirt taking place on Saturday on either side of the US.

In New York, Saratoga’s month-long meet comes to a close with the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Over 100 years old, this race has produced plenty of top-class horses and last year’s winner Olympiad went on to finish second to Flightline in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

However, tonight’s line-up does not look particularly strong. It appears to be a match between Proxy and Rattle N Roll, with Tyson and Bright Future also holding strong claims.

Trained for Godolphin by Mike Stidham, Proxy has won at Grade 1 level before and is very consistent but perhaps wouldn’t be considered in the elite bracket.

Rattle N Roll has yet to win a Grade 1 but he is improving all the time and, stepping up in distance tonight, he promises to go very close, based on his speed figures.

The grey Tyson ships in from Canada where he has been coming through the grades for trainer Josie Carroll (she’s Canadian, not Irish!). All too often, Canadian stakes race form comes up woefully short across the border and it’s difficult to have confidence in the strength of Tyson’s Woodbine form.

Todd Pletcher pitches in recent optional claiming race winner Bright Future, another horse with a big speed figure to his name. If he wins it would probably be saying something about the open nature of the 10-furlong division in the US this year.

It really is a tricky race to predict and Rattle N Roll is a tentative choice.

Over in California in the early hours, Del Mar hosts a better quality race in the Pacific Classic. This is the race Flightline won last year and it almost always produces a legitimate Breeders’ Cup Classic contender.

It’s a pretty open race this year, headed by the three-year-old and recent Haskell Stakes winner Geaux Rocket Ride. Dick Mandella’s son of Candy Ride missed the spring classics but is climbing the ranks quickly. His jockey Mike Smith is 58 years of age.

Bob Baffert supplies the two main dangers in the shape of the three-year-old Arabian Knight and the five-year-old Defunded. Third in the Haskell, Arabian Knight was coming back off a long break at Monmouth Park and could well improve a lot. The son of Uncle Mo is likely to try and make all, in typical Baffert style.

As a dual Grade 1 winner, Defunded must be respected, despite his rare below-par effort here last time out. He is likely to race prominently too, and a lot will depend on how competitive the two Baffert horses are for the lead.

Stilleto Boy also deserves a shout-out. The five-year-old has been a standing dish in west coast Grade 1 races for the past two years, winning one finally in March this year at Santa Anita.

It would be nice to see Geaux Rocket Ride win again and stake a serious claim for top three-year-old honours.

Spencer in Kentucky

Take note that Jamie Spencer has two rides in valuable turf races at Kentucky Downs on Saturday evening.

At 10.54pm Irish time, he rides Queen Picasso for Christophe Clement in a $500,000 Grade 3 race for fillies (a race in which Richard Hannon runs Nell Gwyn winner Mammas Girl), and at 11.28pm Spencer is on board the Charlie Hills-trained Ancient Rome in the $1 million Mint Millions Stakes, another Grade 3.

Todd Pletcher’s Annapolis is the hot favourite for the Mint Millions. He finished second to the top-class Casa Creed recently and is very reliable.

Ancient Rome was a 33/1 chance when he won a Goodwood handicap on softish ground last month on what was his first run for current connections. This seems a very ambitious tilt.