3 Best Bets to Win the 2025 Secretariat Stakes

Key Takeaways:

• Antisocial (10-1) is a live longshot with a win over the track, tactical speed, and a hot trainer at Colonial Downs.
• End of Romance (5-1) is versatile, improving, and already proven against older horses—key assets for his graded debut.
• Dream On (5-2) is the proven class of the field, with strong recent form, tactical options, and a sharp local work tab.

Saturday, August 9, at Colonial Downs is the marquee race day of the meet: the Colonial Downs Festival of Racing. Some of the best three-year-old turf horses will line up for the Secretariat Stakes, a $500,000 turf mile.

Of course, Secretariat is best known to horse racing fans for sweeping the 1973 Triple Crown. Big Red won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes in record time for all three races. However, a fact that sometimes gets lost in horse racing history is that his final two victories came on turf: in the Man o’ War (G1) at Belmont Park and the Canadian International (G2) at Woodbine.

Though the race Secretariat won at Arlington Park was a dirt race, the track named a turf race for him, fitting both for his wins on the turf and the fact that Arlington had one of the most renowned turf courses in Thoroughbred racing. After the track closed in 2021, it took a year off in 2022 because of turf issues at Churchill Downs before being moved to its current home at Colonial Downs in 2023.

The Secretariat Stakes is carded as the ninth of 12 races on the Saturday card at Colonial Downs. The card features seven stakes, three graded: the Arlington Million (G1), the Beverly D. (G2), and the Secretariat. Racing gets underway at noon Eastern Daylight Time, with the Secretariat set for 4:41 p.m. EDT.

These are the three best bets for the Secretariat Stakes:

1. Antisocial (2025 Secretariat Stakes odds: 10-1)

The Secretariat is a closely matched race, with no runner’s form looking truly imposing compared to the rest of the field. This makes an improving longshot from a hot barn look like a good bet, and we have such a horse in Antisocial.

Trainer Jorge Duarte has gotten a hot start at Colonial Downs, entering the race week with a 10: 3-2-2 line. One of those winners on the meet is this very horse, who tracked the pace and ran on to win an allowance-level turf mile over the same course and distance as the Secretariat on July 16. That makes Antisocial the only horse in this race who has raced, much less won, at Colonial. Duarte does very well with last-out winners as well, both from a win rate perspective (22% in the last three years) and from a price perspective, as there’s a positive flat-bet ROI across that sample.

Class is the question for Antisocial, of course, as he has not faced graded company and has not faced stakes company at all since a debut in an ungraded six-furlong dirt sprint at Monmouth last September. But, not only is he a better horse than he was then, he doesn’t need much of a move forward from his last-out allowance win in order to be a win candidate in this race. With tactical speed, a nice middle gate, and a barn that tends to keep last-out winners in form for another race, there is plenty of reason to like Antisocial as one of the longest shots in this wide-open affair.

2. End of Romance (2025 Secretariat Stakes odds: 5-1)

Graham Motion won this race with Trikari last year, a horse who already had proven graded-stakes chops. This time, Motion returns, but his horse has a completely different profile—he makes his graded-stakes debut here. However, there are reasons to think End of Romance can find the winners’ circle at a square middle price.

End of Romance has raced six times, but only twice in two-turn races on the grass. Those have been his best starts so far—he rallied fiercely late to miss by only a length in the one-mile Woodhaven two back at Aqueduct, and then beat first-level allowance foes at a mile and seventy yards over the Delaware lawn last out. Though this is a step up in the sense that he is shifting from an allowance race to a graded-stakes race, that allowance race came against older horses. Facing older, more developed horses for the first time is a tough assignment for a sophomore, even in allowance company, and he handled that task with aplomb.

And, it’s not just about the fact that End of Romance beat older. He showed some real versatility, too—in the Woodhaven he rallied from last, and was last even midstretch, while in the allowance win he stalked the pace and took over. This showed he is able to adapt to different field compositions and pace setups, something that gives him options in this race, where a sharp pace is possible but not guaranteed.

3. Dream On (2025 Secretariat Stakes odds: 5-2)

Dream On, one of a pair from the Mark Casse barn, is the closest thing to a proven horse this field has. He has won three of his last four starts, including a pair of stakes at a mile. He also has stakes wins over both firm and yielding courses, meaning no matter how the turf does or doesn’t dry out after rains during the week, he should be able to handle the footing. He is a lukewarm favorite on the morning line, something that is right at the line of fair if that’s what shakes out on the tote board on race day.

The outside post draw is a positive: it’s a field of just eight, so not large enough to mean he is way out in the parking lot. It should help him get a clean break. And, given the fact that there is some pace (perhaps from Maui Strong, Simulate, or Antisocial), but not any runner who is wedded to the lead in order to run well, jockey Javier Castellano has the option to either work an outside stalking trip or even try to take the initiative if riding tactics get shy or if there is chaos inside him at the start.

It also appears that Dream On seems to have been pointed here ever since his Penn Mile win. All three works since that race have been bullet drills at Colonial, including a four-furlong bullet on the turf August 1. It suggests Casse has him sharp, and he is settling into Virginia well.

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