What a Weekend!

Wow, that was one action packed weekend! Fabulous Strike’s fabulous front-running first G1 win, English Channel’s last minute daring push through a hole that he had to make big enough, Unbridled Belle’s unabashed upset and last but not least Curlin & Lawyer Ron’s stretch battle. And that was just today, on one track!

Todd Pletcher’s back and so am I! After unsuccessfully trying my hand at Pick 4’s and 6’s all last weekend, I hit the Hard Spun/Street Sense straight Exacta, the Unbridled Belle/Indian Vale/Ginger Punch Trifecta, the Curlin/Lawyer Ron/Political Force Trifecta and today’s late Pick 4! Finally, a comeback… something I’m sure Todd Pletcher thought today too with his 3 wins.

Dale Romans and Stanely Hough also had two wins apiece today. Ramon Dominguez scored three wins while Johnny V, Robby Albarado & Eibar Coa all had two wins. Last but not least, Smart Strike sired three of today’s winners: Fabulous Strike, English Channel & Curlin!

Two other sire notes on today’s Belmont card… Invasor’s sire, Candy Stripes is the dam’s sire of Tomorrow’s Nano, winner of the 11th. I had never noticed his sire noted anywhere else. The last place finisher of the 5th, a state bred $35000 claiming race was sired by Dubai Millennium. He only had one crop of offspring before he tragically died of grass sickness. I noticed that another one of his offspring, Noble Duty, ran in a low level claimer last weekend and didn’t do so well either. I’m interested to find out how the rest of his cropped has fared.

Since I don’t really wanna to end on such a bummer, I’ll be interested to read all the speculation about what this weekend’s performances might mean for BC performances. I agree with those who think Street Sense didn’t knock himself out to try catch Hard Spun (i.e., Calvin Borel didn’t beat the crap out him the way did in the Travers), not that I think he could have anyway. Since he couldn’t catch him it was a smarter move to save it for the Classic. As for Hard Spun, I wish they would run him in the Dirt Mile instead of the Classic, he won’t get such favorable circumstances in the Classic, and no matter how much I love him I don’t think he can win the Classic. I want to watch the Jockey Gold Cup again to see if Lawyer Ron was all out or saved a little. It’s exciting that it seems somewhat wide open but a bit of a bummer that it’s stacked so heavily towards 3 year olds. Maybe if 3 year olds couldn’t run in the Classic there would be more incentive for them to run as 4 year olds.