Captain Candyman & Vineyard Haven duke it out in the stretch of the King’s Bishop (Adam Mooshian)

This break in Breeders’ Cup content is brought to you by the De Francis Dash and Vineyard Haven!

The De Francis Dash is back this Saturday at Laurel after a brief hiatus.

The 57-day schedule is highlighted by the return of Laurel’s marquee race, the $300,000 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash (G1), which was not carded in 2008 due to a purse account shortfall, on October 24.

Many were entered, including Fabulous Strike and Kodiak Kowboy but the recently returned Vineyard Haven is the only marquee name for this years event.

You may remember his stunning return in the King’s Bishop a couple of months ago at Saratoga where he ran huge coming off an 8 month layoff but was rightfully DQ’d for pilot error.

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He’s been working great and had a nice blow out today so it’s probably safe to assume that he’ll be sharp on Saturday. But let’s not forget the second choice in the morning line odds, Fleet Valid, son of 1993 De Francis Dash winner Montbrook.

In fact, Vineyard Haven has some family ties to the DeFrancis dash as his half brother On the Vineyard is by the 1996 De Francis Dash winner Lite the Fuse. Who are the previous De Francis Dash winners? Several have turned out to be champion sprinters (from Brisnet):

Introduced in 1990, the De Francis Dash is one of the elite six-furlong sprints in the country with four of the 18 winners — Housebuster (1991), Cherokee Run (1994), Smoke Glacken (1997) and Thor’s Echo (2006) — earning Eclipse Award honors for champion sprinter.

Update: As it turns out current entrant Peace Chant also has ties to the De Francis Dash! This was brought to my attention this morning in the comments by Val of Foolish Pleasure and Fillies First (thank you!):

Don’t forget that the mare Safely Kept, who was left in the gate and came from dead last to finish third in that 1991 De Francis (and had won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in 1990) is the dam of Peace Chant who drew post 6. He wasn’t bad for six furlongs in the G1 Forego last out.

Vineyard Haven won’t become this year’s champion sprinter but that doesn’t mean a strong win wouldn’t be impressive and probably a giant relief for whoever made all those Godophin purchases that are finally paying off! And perhaps this is a prep for the Cigar Mile at the Big A.

While I couldn’t dig up Thor’s Echo’s rendition, here are the rest of the champions mentioned above + Montbrook & Lite the Fuse’s (i.e., everything over at YouTube).

1997 - Smoke Glacken:

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1996 - Lite the Fuse:

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1994 - Cherokee Run:

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1993 - Montbrook:

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1991 - Housebuster - WARNING: there is a breakdown in the stretch.

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It should also be noted that GbG and Brooklyn Backstretch fav Saratoga Russell is entered as well. Good luck to all!

Posted by dana on Oct 21 2009    
Filed Under: Saratoga Russell, 2009, De Francis Dash, Laurel, Sprint, Fabulous Strike, Thor's Echo, Race Replay, YouTube, Racing

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As mentioned before, both Numaany and GbG horse of interest National Pride have been back in the U.S of A training after being acquired by Godolphin in the fall last year.

National Pride has not raced since his debut in November where he broke his maiden impressively beating Saratoga Russell. Numaany has raced a few times in Dubai unsuccessfully. Both look to be training well and are set to return at the allowance level at Saratoga this Saturday.

Numaany is entered in the 7th, a 1 1/16th 68k allowance on the turf and National Pride is entered in the 9th, a 6 1/2F 67k allowance on the dirt.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, here’s Numaany’s odd and impressive maiden race… the bootleg quality of the video certainly adds to the overall WTF of the scenario.

Keep an eye open for them on Saturday… not so much from a betting perspective, at least not for National Pride who’s the 2-1 favorite in the morning line, but from a “this could be interesting” perspective.

Alright, back to not blogging… and if anyone has any poll suggestions, let me know.

Posted by dana on Jul 31 2008    
Filed Under: National Pride, Saratoga Russell, 2008, YouTube, Race Replay, Fans, Saratoga, Racing

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Just last night I was lamenting the sale of Racecar Rhapsody to an unidentified middle eastern buyer. You may remember I really liked him in the Preakness (you know, the race where Big Brown showed up when I was betting he wouldn’t, just a race too early!).

This reminded me of another horse that I was intrigued by that was whisked off to Dubai after one impressive effort in the late fall. National Pride, made a notable debut on November 17th at Aqueduct, winning by 1 3/4 lengths over a Brooklyn Backstretch favorite, Saratoga Russell.

DRF reported:

On Nov. 17, National Pride won a six-furlong maiden race at Aqueduct by 1 3/4 lengths, covering six furlongs in 1:09.27 and earning a 92 Beyer. National Pride is a 2-year-old son of Macho Uno, the juvenile champion of 2000. Friday, National Pride arrived at Payson Park in Florida, where Rick Mettee oversees a string of Godolphin runners.

“He sustained a 3 1/2-furlong run in the race,” Mettee said. “It’s not like he ran for the final eighth of a mile and the field fell apart. You don’t see 2-year-olds do that too often.”

Mettee said National Pride would most likely begin a 30-day quarantine at Payson on Dec. 16 and ship to Dubai in mid-January.

So last night I made my way over to the Godolphin to see if I could find out anything about National Pride… had he raced again, was he in training? Nuttin’.

Imagine my surprise just a few moments ago when I went to my DRF virtual stable to see that he’s back on the work tab at Keenland!!! He breezed 3F at 36.4 (5/32) over a fast all weather track… AND, Numaany, who was also purchased by Godolophin around the same time must have worked with him as he posted a 3F breeze at 38 (20/32), his second at Keenland!

How exciting! I wonder what they’re training towards? Does anyone know anything about this? Perhaps we’ll also see Racecar Rhapsody again, I hope so!

Posted by dana on Jun 22 2008    
Filed Under: 2008, Big Brown, Saratoga Russell, National Pride, International Racing, Racing

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Hillside Turf course at Santa Anita (Charles Pravata)

News of the Pyro deal prompted some excellent posting by a couple of my esteemed colleagues. Jen at the Down The Stretch takes a look at racing to the breeding shed while Superfecta compares and contrasts the early retirement ages of race horses in different countries.

Kevin at The Aspiring Horseplayer is featuring a “best of the TBA” that includes a nice collection of posts. One of the posts I contributed was along the same lines as Jen & Superfecta’s.

You can count on Alan at Left at the Gate to have all the latest about the Spitzer “situation”. The comment thread on the current post is stellar, as always. Everyone I’ve encountered (at the deli and my laundromat) was laughing about what an idiot he is, but clearly there are racing implications too (not just poking fun at elected officials).

The Breeders’ Cup has just announced a new sponsor, Sentient, a private aviation company (not the hottest name, when did being sentient become a differentiator in the aviation space?).

Sentient will also provide Breeders’ Cup with a variety of customized private travel programs for its constituents.

Does this mean they’re going be making more enticing arrangements for overseas horses? I hope so!

In thinking about Indian Blessing potentially missing the Oaks I had a couple of thoughts…

1) was it me or did Gomez give her the same kind of ride he gave Hard Spun in the Belmont (i.e., not working with her natural speed) and 2) not a bad move really. Unlike the colts with the Derby she probably doesn’t “need” the Oaks as much to up her value (I feel gross even typing that) + it’s nice to see someone not feel like they “have to” run in an event if it doesn’t feel right for the horse.

Speaking of 3yo colts, I’m not ready to throw in the towel on Majestic Warrior and Tale of Ekati just yet, particularly Majestic Warrior. He had come to come 3-4 wide in both turns, I bet he improves off the effort. Also, J Be K wasn’t allowed to harness his early speed, so I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s got a longer distance as well.

I leave you with the very foggy Gotham, well done to race caller John Imbriale… “when last seen Saratoga Russell was leading…”

Posted by dana on Mar 10 2008    
Filed Under: Pyro, Charles Pravata, Saratoga Russell, 2008, Indian Blessing, YouTube, Race Replay, Breeding, Hard Spun, Derby Trail, Breeders' Cup, Racing

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Chris of Female on the Horse & Carol Cedeno at Monmouth Park (Chris Forbes)

As someone who watches their traffic regularly, I had been noticing that jock apprentice Carol Cedeno has been the most frequent search term used to arrive at GbG by way of Google.

How frequent? In the past month I’ve had 34 visits that resulted from searches for the young Miss Cedeno with the next most regular search term, Chantal Sutherland, totaling 5 visits (Saratoga Russell also clocks in with 5). And it’s not like it’s her mother searching over and over again, they’re from all over the place.

Those yearning for more info the popular apprentice lucked out this week when Bloodhorse published an article on her.

Speaking of female jockeys, while trying to scare up a picture for this post I stumbled across the Female on the Horse site. The author of the site (pictured above) works track security and has been compiling a giant archive of interviews of female jockeys!

Also check out his rather impressive photo galleries where his M.O, as demonstrated above, is to get them to pose with him giving the thumbs up.

It sort of reminds me Star Struck by Gary Boas, an astonishing archive of photos of the author with celebrities… also worth checking out as an interesting artifact of fandom & period piece (the photos were taken from the mid-sixties to 1980).

Posted by dana on Nov 30 2007    
Filed Under: Carol Cedeno, Saratoga Russell, 2007, Chantal Sutherland, Fans, Racing

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