In The Money Telegraph
Friday, August 28, 2026 · By ITM Staff
A $20 Shot at the BCBC on Charles Town Classic Night
The ITM Horseplayers Tour rolls into West Virginia tonight for Charles Town Classic Night, one of the bull ring’s biggest cards of the year — headlined by the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic and the Grade 2 Charles Town Oaks, with the Hilton Memorial and the Pink Ribbon rounding out a loaded stakes-night quartet. The Friday feeder is the usual $20 Pick & Pray, up to three entries, with the house cut going to Breeders’ Cup Charities. Finish in the top four and you punch into the ITM playoffs; crack the top 10% and you advance to Saturday’s game, with a BCBC seat on the line.
Mikee P sat down with Edison Hatter — a Charles Town regular who owns horses at the track and knows every quirk of the place — to go through Races 8 through 11, where local knowledge counts for plenty on a speed-favoring oval. Watch below, then get in the game.
Enter Friday’s Tour feeder on HorsePlayers →
Travers Eve: The Rubber Match Is Set
Tomorrow brings the summer’s centerpiece: the 157th Travers, Race 13 at Saratoga with a 6:35 p.m. ET post on FOX, worth $1.25 million at a mile and a quarter. It sets up as a rubber match between the two colts who’ve defined the division — Golden Tempo, the 5-2 favorite who took both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont, and Renegade, the 3-1 second choice who chased him home at Churchill before rebounding to win the Jim Dandy. This time Renegade adds a new pilot, with Tyler Gaffalione picking up the mount while Irad Ortiz Jr. remains sidelined by injury.
They headline a genuinely deep field — Preakness winner Napoleon Solo, Chad Brown’s pair Sea Strike and Emerging Market as he chases a first Travers at his hometown track, plus Baby Vino, The Puma, and more. ITM has the race covered from every angle: Ryan Anderson and Jackson Muniz break it down with DRF’s David Aragona on The Gallop Out, and there’s a full RaceLens angles preview as well. Both are up now on the ITM YouTube channel.
PTF: What Horseplayers Lost in the Gramm Case
Disclosure, as ever: Marshall Gramm is a friend, and Ten Strike Racing was ITM’s first commercial sponsor. PTF didn’t learn Gramm was the source of the leaked PPs until months after they circulated.
After two weeks reporting on the HISA case, PTF has written a more personal piece — and it turns the lens partly on himself. He argues that in his rush to flag what he saw as unfair in HISA’s account, he didn’t say plainly enough that what Gramm did was simply wrong. He says it plainly now: pulling the veterinary histories of 57,000 horses that were none of his business showed a staggering lack of judgment, twice over — in taking the data, and in not coming forward when it became a public story.
The heart of the piece is about what horseplayers lost. Gramm, PTF writes, was a kind of unicorn — a genuinely successful bettor and a successful owner both, who had earned a rare seat at the sport’s grown-up table: elected to The Jockey Club, treasurer of Thoroughbred Charities of America, on the panels where decisions get made. For a constituency that funds racing and is seldom consulted, he looked like a voice in the room where it happens. His fall cost horseplayers that seat, and, PTF fears, confirmed the low opinion some executives always held of bettors. Gramm is facing the consequences — a provisional suspension, giving back his Belmont Challenge winnings, out of next year’s NHC, resigned from the TCA board and The Jockey Club. As one listener put it to PTF, what was lost was “faith in the good guy” and in a system that might be fixed.
Friday’s Cards and the Travers Day Contest
Del Mar. Dean Keppler makes Just Work It Out his best bet in Race 8. Keppler’s card →
Monmouth. It’s the final Friday of the meet, a six-race card with first post at 2:00 p.m. ET. Eric Solomon has it. Solomon’s card →
And looking to Saturday, the $800 Travers Day Monmouth/Saratoga Contest — the last handicapping contest of the Monmouth meet — has NHC and BCBC seats on the line. John Gaspar previewed it with contest expert Chris Cupples; details are at Monmouthpark.com.
ITM Plus
Travers Day Is Here
The biggest Saturday of the Saratoga summer has arrived, with the Travers topping a card stacked with Grade 1s. ITM Plus members get the members’ bet share, Nick Tammaro’s daily Saratoga notebook, exclusive shows, and full coverage through Travers Day and on to the Breeders’ Cup.
More all weekend at inthemoneypodcast.com and on the ITM YouTube channel, with premium coverage on ITM Plus.
