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.

Posted by dana on Sep 30 2007    
Filed Under: Indian Vale, Ginger Punch, Unbridled Belle, Fabulous Strike, John Velazquez, Come Back, English Channel, Exacta, BC Classic, Robby Albarado, Stanely Hough, Dale Romans, Trifecta, Ramon Dominguez, 2007, Hard Spun, Street Sense, Belmont, Let Horses Race, Breeding, Wooo!, Curlin, Lawyer Ron, Eibar Coa, Todd Pletcher, Calvin Borel, Breeders' Cup, Invasor, Racing

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The Hennegan Brothers! Well, virtually speaking that is, on Facebook. Who knew that site could actually be used for things other than getting bitten by zombies and sending people virtual drinks! If you don’t already know, they’re the film making brothers who directed the genius and yet to be released First Saturday in May. Swifty and I were lucky enough to see it at the Tribeca Film Festival.

I mentioned it here as part of a larger point that there are plenty of things that could be done to bring casual fans into the fold, such as play their film on TV every year around Derby time to make the connection to casual fans that the Derby doesn’t “just happen” in hopes getting them engaged the following year.

Steve Crist also wrote a really great article on the film (within a week of my blog post, Coincidence? More than likely).

They also have a collection of nice clips, some outtakes and some from the film, of Barbaro. I’m gonna ask them to post some Lawyer Ron clips as well… he and Jazil were also featured in the film.

At any rate… go to their site and register so you can find out when there’s a screening in your area. They also have a film blog.

Posted by dana on Sep 25 2007    
Filed Under: Hennegan Brothers, Film, First Saturday in May, YouTube, Jazil, Kentucky Derby, Derby Trail, Barbaro, 2007, Lawyer Ron

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Buried in a Lawyer Ron update was some info on The Monkey.

Pletcher said The Green Monkey came out of his third-place finish in a six-furlong maiden race at Belmont Sept. 15 in good order. The Green Monkey’s debut was regarded as a highlight of the racing card because of the $16 million he brought at auction last year as a 2-year-old.

“You would think a horse that worked as fast as he did at the 2-year-old sale would be a little quicker,” Pletcher said. “But I liked the way he finished the last sixteenth and the way he galloped out. I look forward to running him [at longer distances].”

I love that he came out and said the obvious, you’d think he would been a little quicker with that scary 2yo $16 million deal sealing workout. It’ll be interesting to see how he stretches out, and develops.

[Bloodhorse]

Posted by dana on Sep 18 2007    
Filed Under: 2007, Maiden, Todd Pletcher, The Green Monkey, Lawyer Ron, Racing

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47-1 Fresh Episode pulling an upset at Saratoga (Sarah K. Andrew).

When we first arrived in the hotel room I exclaimed “Ah, the handicapping palace!”. By the second day we were joking that it felt like cramming for exam week. On the third day we were calling it the handicapping torture chamber.

Neither of us had handicapped full cards more than one day in a row so we were a bit surprised by how draining it was. Surprised isn’t exactly right, we were so excited that we just didn’t factor it in. By Saturday night I couldn’t look at a menu and make a decision… I had been making decisions for 2 days straight, just put some food in front of me!

We quickly started to take a pass on some 20K claimers and a few allowance races… those 2 year old races were so much quicker to get through! “Races for horse at least 7 years old who haven’t won a race other than a maiden and run every other week” Swifty joked.

There were points when we got so over tired and giddy that Swifty asked, “when did we smoke a dube?”. Of particular interest was how the trouble lines, when read with the right inflection, could be narration for high school dates. Did I mention we’re in our (early) 40s?

Back to the races. We both really liked Sharp Susan in the Lake George. I had her boxed with Good Mood & Red Birkin in addition to Dashes & Dots & Miss Tizzynow across the board. I also liked Lady Attack (not to mention how much I like her name, insert giddy laughter) and Rutherienne. This is the second time I didn’t incorporate her only to have her run a really strong race. Perhaps next time.

At this point the Saturday Breeder’s Cup challenge races seem like a blur of races where I didn’t cash any tickets. As expected, I liked Papi Chullo in the Whitney. I’m still trying to figure out what happened. The track report of “Papi Chullo saved ground to no avail” seemed particularly spare to me, mind you I think those guys do a great job and I’m extremely grateful for their write-ups. I also had him tri boxed with Flashy Bull & Diamond Stripes in addition to having Wanderin’ Boy across the board (one of the precious few tickets I cashed). I’ve always liked Wanderin’ Boy and was glad to see him step up. Lawyer Ron really kicked it in the end and it was thrilling to see him (now offically) “DEE-MOLISH the track record” (a la Tom Durkin).

Joan made a great point about Lawyer Ron being yet another compelling argument for racing past 3 years old. Compare his 3 year old and 4 year old campaign. He’s maturing very nicely and it seems like the best might be yet to come. More than likely I’ll make an entire post about this but couldn’t wait to point it out.

Did I mention the huge payouts? They made playing trifectas hard to resist. As I mentioned before some folks behind us hit a $2000+ tri playing their hotel room number. I love to play exactas and occasionally play tris but I stepped it up with the tris. Every time I played a tri instead of boxing all of my picks some other horse got in the mix. Ah Saratoga… how you kicked my horses ass.

I also did a lot of WPS bets on long shots, however did not have the pictured long shot of Fresh Episode. I liked the other Freud offspring, Pressing Issue a little better and was gonna do a Freudian box with them because I loved their names, however Pressing Issue scratched. Another good name was Second Marriage by Not for Love out of Impulse Shopper… well done!

As for biases… stalkers crushed on Saturday winning 9 out of 11 races!! The combo of Clemente & Gomez won 2 on Friday, while Gomez had 4 wins total. Saturday saw 2 wins for the combo of Klesaris and Pino, while Mott had two wins as did both Cornelio & John Velasquez & Eddie Castro. Sunday was even for trainers and jocks but still favoring stalkers.

Regardless of our performance at windows (Swifty was doing well for a while, up a couple of hundred bucks), we both gave ourselves points for money management. Neither of us had to do the walk of shame to the ATM and we both literally spent our last buck on the Jim Dandy. In full disclosure I was fully prepared to go the ATM because I wanted to do a $20 exacta of Street Sense over Tiz Wonderful but only had $11. The fates were with me that the ATMs weren’t working (however that seemed a little… I don’t know, unprofessional?) so I did an $10 exacta and tipped the lady in the restroom my final dollar.

Thank you Saratoga, for a long fun weekend that kicked my ass… in a good way! I’ll be back.

Posted by dana on Jul 31 2007    
Filed Under: Exacta, Money Management, Papi Chullo, Bill Mott, Trifecta, Sarah K. Andrew, Wanderin' Boy, Rutherienne, Sharp Susan, Wrap Up, John Velazquez, Flashy Bull, Street Sense, Saratoga, Gambling, That's Why They Call it Gambling, Lawyer Ron, Mario Pino, Tom Durkin, 2007, Cornelio Velazquez, Garrett Gomez, Racing

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