ITM Telegraph — Coast-to-Coast Blockbuster: Alabama and Pacific Classic Day, Plus PTF’s Gramm Follow-Up | Saturday, August 22, 2026

In The Money Telegraph

Saturday, August 22, 2026 · By ITM Staff

Coast to Coast: Alabama and Pacific Classic Day

It’s one of the deepest days of the summer, with Grade 1 features on both coasts and a NYRA Cross Country Pick 5 tying it all together — a 50-cent minimum at a low 15% takeout. Here’s the sequence:

Saratoga R10 — Ballston Spa (G2) — 6:07 p.m. ET
Saratoga R11 — Alabama (G1) — 6:42 p.m. ET
Del Mar R5 — Green Flash (G2) — 7:00 p.m. ET
Del Mar R9 — Del Mar Oaks (G1) — 9:00 p.m. ET
Del Mar R10 — Pacific Classic (G1) — 9:30 p.m. ET

The day’s crown jewel is the $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar — a “Win and You’re In’’ to the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Bill Mott’s Knightsbridge is the one to beat on paper, but PTF is drawn to the Japanese invader Finger, the Tokyo Derby winner, to pull the mild upset. He and JK went through the whole West Coast sequence below.

Back at the Spa, Counting Stars looks the one to beat in the Alabama, while Chad Brown chases a ninth Ballston Spa with the favored Segesta. PTF has a full horse-by-horse guide to the Ballston Spa at At The Races — read it here — and he and JK went through the full Saratoga card, and addressed the Gramm story, on the show below.

The Gramm Case: What HISA Said, and What It Can Show

Disclosure, again: Marshall Gramm is a friend and ITM contributor, and Ten Strike Racing was the company’s first sponsor. PTF was not among the group he shared those past performances with, and has tried to report this the way he would about a stranger — including the parts that make Gramm look bad.

PTF has posted a follow-up to his piece on the HISA case, and it sharpens the point. He is not asking for leniency, and he states the offense plainly: Gramm pulled the veterinary histories of some 57,000 horses — roughly 4.5 million records — that were none of his business, and should accept punishment for it. That case, PTF writes, requires no argument about hacking at all. What it does not yet support, he argues, is the piece HISA would need to justify the nuclear option of a lifetime ban: that Gramm deliberately evaded the portal’s security.

The follow-up walks through how HISA’s public account has shifted — most strikingly, Lisa Lazarus calling the idea that Gramm simply changed a number in a URL “patently false” on Monday, before HISA’s own written statement confirmed exactly that two days later. It also adds an outside voice: NYU cybersecurity professor Justin Cappos, who has no stake in any of it and whose read cuts both ways. Cappos calls the automated, large-scale collection hard to defend — but is blunt that a system letting you reach other horses’ records by changing a number in a URL is “very, very poorly” designed, is uncomfortable calling it a hack, and says the setup came uncomfortably close to entrapment. Lazarus, for her part, has taken responsibility for the vulnerability. PTF’s bottom line: an organization whose account keeps changing is asking the industry for trust it could restore by releasing the report, redacted, and showing the evidence.

It’s careful, technical, and sourced on the record, and the ITM team is covering the story across formats — in print, and with PTF and JK taking it up on the Saratoga show above. Hearings are set for September. Read the follow-up →

More Across the Country

Del Mar. Dean Keppler has the full Pacific Classic Day card, covering three of the five Cross Country legs. Keppler’s card →

Monmouth. The $100,000 Violet Stakes for fillies and mares on the turf headlines, with Eric Solomon leaning to City Girl. Solomon’s card →

Colonial. It’s Claiming Crown Showcase Day, where the top two in nine qualifier races earn berths to the Claiming Crown championships at Churchill Downs in November. Michael Domabyl has the card. Domabyl’s card →

More all weekend at inthemoneypodcast.com and on the ITM YouTube channel, with premium coverage on ITM Plus.