Indeed, Godolphin owned Sara Louise, Vineyard Haven and Music Note all had fabulous comebacks, but they weren’t alone. Bob Baffert finally got a win on the card with 2yo Bulldogger in the 8th.
It’s also notable that Ian Wilkes got his first Grade 1 win with Capt Candyman Can in the Kings Bishop and Javier Castellano took both turf races, both of which were first time rides for him. Castellano (19) and Johnny V (20) had 3 wins a piece while Prado (19) had 2.
For the most part the meet leaders didn’t fair so well. Dominguez (36), the current leader, only had one win and current #2 Garcia (30) didn’t have any wins, however they’re both still safely ahead of the rest of the gang with Leparoux being the next closest with 23 wins. Linda Rice (14) also didn’t have any wins on the day but Pletcher’s (14) 2 wins bring him neck and neck with the queen. They both have plenty of chances to over take the other today with her 7 entries to his 6, is any wonder they’re the meet leaders?
There’s a reason why I wait until the parade to make my final picks on the first race of a pick 4 or pick 6, and Salve Germania in the Ballston Spa is the perfect example of that reason. I put that crazy, only previously so-so German invader in all of my P4 tickets and she won at 24-1. She was my parade play of the year! Music Note was the only thing that kept me from cashing what would have been the biggest ticket I had ever cashed, and I only have myself to blame to cheaping out and not including her when I had a chance to make a score a like that. On the bright side I had a nice win bet on der crazy invader and the cold exacta as I put her over Rutherienne, My Princess Jess and Captain’s Lover, too bad I didn’t think to key her in a tri as well!
Kent D. and Summer Bird help us kick off summer the right way (budmeister 26.2)
Like Curlin, I do better with an outing on the track before the marquee event. On previous Belmont days I had already been to the classy & classic Belmont at least once prior to the big day, not this year.
After getting into a comfortable groove of playing from home and not worrying about things like factoring in time to wait on line for the bathroom or having to hear annoying conversations all day, would I be able to cash some tickets and enjoy the day? Cash some tickets, one. Enjoy the day, definitely!
Our seats were fantastic, just shy of the finish line in the 3rd floor grandstand. With only a few brief exceptions our neighbors were enjoyable as well. The couple sitting to our right were real racing fans, she had even placed a $20 win bet on Mine That Bird in the Derby! She said she thought the trainer had a quiet confidence in an interview… that method worked out a lot better than most. Not sure how they fared on the day.
To our left were two tween girls who seemed to come from a racing family as they knew horses, trainers and jockeys by name. Sprinkled in with talk about the horses were copious amounts of giggling about Facebook and some high pitched squealing. Swifty kept reminding me that it was better than drunk frat boys smoking cigars… he was right.
Whoever had tickets directly behind us did not show so we had a rotating cavalcade of guest neighbors. Some were inoffensive but one guy narrated the Acorn on the phone to someone while later on another one ate a stinky sausage sandwich while putting his bare foot on my seat and simultaneously telling his friends that they should “grab some girls on the way to cash their tickets so they could do a lap dance for them”. “Dude, I’m serious”. Good luck with that. Fortunately, neither of these pests lasted more than one race.
I generally ignore my phone at the track (as anyone who has ever tried to call me at the track can attest to) but did manage to check in on twitter from time to time. Here are few notable tweets:
As the stakes portion of the day got underway, Jessica remarked:
Sporting a pair or not, there were a lot of impressive performances yesterday but the most impressive was Fabulous Strike’s insane run in the True North. Battling Sixthirteen to run outrageous splits (21.85 / 43.62! / 55.28 / 1:07.85) only to pull away with the authority in the stretch… could that have been the one of the best performances of the year? I didn’t notice the splits until after the race, he made it look so easy that I thought the race was a little hum drum…. ha!
The Just A Game marked my first bone head move of the day. In addition to Forever Together I liked Caribbean Sunset, Diamondrella and Modern Look in that order. The thing that kept me from liking Modern Look more was Gomez. In her previous race he gave her what I’ve come to call “The Hard Spun Ride”, strangling her instead of letting her run and it looked to me like that cost her last out (not sure she would have won but think she might have done better). I liked the way Modern Look looked in the parade and went with her instead of Diamondrella. Lo and behold GoGo strangled her on the backstretch and she finished last.
Bone head move number two came in the Woody Stephens when I dismissed Munnings parade perkiness as being too worked up, something I usually would be all over when playing from home. He looked nervous and little jumpy as they went by the grandstand and then bolted down the track after breaking from the pony. It was a tough call but I decided to go with “too keyed up”… ugh! On the bright side, it felt very much like Teuflesburg’s Woody Stephens (which I loved) where he finally gets the benefit of an optimal distance and puts it all together. (And let’s hope Hello Broadway finally finds his niche, I’d like to see him on turf). I saw Munnings break his maiden at Saratoga and I’m glad to see him find his niche, see you in the King’s Bishop!
While still bone headed, I don’t feel so bad about the Acorn because I at least had Gabby’s Golden Gal in the mix. She looked incredible in the parade, which is why I played her, although my win bet was Funny Moon. There was a tense moment after the race where Gabby’s Golden Galwas a little stressed. I couldn’t totally see what was going on but was glad when she didn’t lay down (although for a moment it looked like she was from my seat, which was extremely upsetting). No doubt Darley is rearranging the giant bags of money in the vault to make some room with their recent purchase of up and coming superstar stud Medaglia d’Oro.
In the Manhattan I played Gio Ponti, Cosmonaut and Cowboy Cal. I had decided earlier in the day that I was not going to play Wesley even though he was my pick in his last out. He looked great in the parade and it was tempting but this was the one time where I had to deliberate during the parade and made the right call. See, there’s always a silver lining even when you lose, or so I tell myself. At least I got to see the race, which is more than can be said for the folks at home!
Summer Bird did not surprise me as the winner, particularly since I had a nice win bet on him (and Flying Private). I mixed up those two with Mine That Bird in exactas and tris. As the day unfolded and the speed held up I was starting to second guess decision to not use Charitable Man. I was in the camp that his Peter Pan win was a dream trip and I wasn’t convinced that he would get the distance. I thought at the very least my three picks would get distance but thought the pace might be too soft. I had my fingers crossed for a Charitable Man, Miner’s Escape hook up.
The 3 that looked great in the parade were Mine That Bird, Summer Bird and Dunkirk. In fact, after the race Swifty and I both admitted that we had the same thought and decided not to say it out loud “Dunkirk is the only horse that makes me nervous”. Swifty’s play was a Summer Bird, Charitable Man & Mine That Bird trifecta box. Even the screeching tweens sitting beside us liked Dunkirk, “Dunkirk looks awesome” “Totally! He’s gonna WIIIIIIIIIIN”. We were sitting right in front of where they loaded them in the gate, which may have been my favorite part of the whole day.
As Dunkirk not only got the lead but set decent fractions, I was both happy and concerned. My runners were getting their preferred pace but it was Dunkirk, not Charitable Man, who was the speed to worry about. It looked like he was gonna throw in the towel as Mine That Bird came up to him but he held tough. When Summer Bird started to come on Swifty and I gave those tweens a run for their money in the shouting department… we were pretty much going bananas. I needed Mine That Bird to hold on for second and he needed the inquiry to take down Dunkirk, it didn’t work out for either of us but it was a helluva an exciting race!
Summer Bird ushered in what looks to be a great summer of racing. What seemed like it might be a day full of uncontested chalk turned out to be full of excellent surprises, validations of improving form and notable redemptions. This can only bode well for some exciting racing as the year unfolds, and to quote Swifty, “who deserves it more than us?”
This week’s rendition of the HANA Pool Party was fun even though 30-1 shot Behave took me out in the first leg coming out of nowhere to win over one my picks, Celebration Dance, by a neck!
The next leg saw Dovita sit nicely off the pace to beat Barefoot Babe (who I threw out) while one of my picks Doctor Carina had a horrible trip (while being full of run, insult to injury) but still managed to get up for 3rd. Over at the horseplayers teen party chat line (twitter), Eddie D pointed out that Dovita was a “slam dunk” according to ThoroGraph (but that ThoroGraph would not have helped with Behave).
The last leg unfolded roughly like I imagined except that one of my picks, So Very Irish, was scratched. Williamsburg, sat a little further back than I imagined but See I A got softened up by This is my Game (who I overlooked) and Williamsburg made a move and poured on it on to win by 5 1/4 and paying $18, nice!
The $2 Pick 3 payed $14,671.40 and a few folks had it! I kept imagining a local player cashing an unexpectedly fat payout, which I think is kind of nice too. See you around the pool next week!
Stardom Bound & Mike Smith waltz home in the Las Virgenes (Charles Pravata)
Or are things looking up? “Jockeys, Win or Die Trying”, much to the relief of this viewer, turned out to be more substantive than the breakdown packed promotion. This year’s 3yo crop is looking deeper and more consistent than last years and, at least for the moment, there doesn’t seem to be much of anything to bitch about (I know, give it time).
Not that I’m a traffic whore (total lie) but Chantal Sutherland and Zenyatta have been the two most frequent searches to make their way to GbG post-”Jockeys”. Sutherland was already my biggest traffic driver from search results but I’m happy to see that the show not only gave Zenyatta decent coverage, but that it’s resulting in people wanting to know more. The racing camera work is downright stunning and does a lot to promote the game… it’s already exciting enough from the grandstand, but seeing like that should certainly peak some interest.
I do have a few small gripes. I thought they did a touch too much cutting back and forth during the Lady’s Secret stretch drive. The drama of the stretch drive could have stood more on it’s own with just a few cut away shots. I also didn’t like the music at all. For example, I would have preferred the Daft Punk original version of the theme song as opposed to that faux hip hop business (which is Stronger by Kanye West for all you googlers, but check out Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger too).
I’m still waiting to hear from one of my non-racing friends to find out what she thought. My mom had this to say in an email “I went past and saw someone get hurt, so I didn’t linger long.” Swifty had the same gripe about the music and, in addition to the theme song, specifically mentioned the music while Sutherland was crying (which I don’t remember). But he and I both agreed that overall the show seems likely to get people interested in racing, which is great! Maybe they’ll shoot the second season at Saratoga?
I’m not sure when Derby preps start to air but I hope media buyers for ESPN, NBC, etc. think to place some ads during the show. Seems like the perfect opportunity to generate some new fans. Perhaps the NTRA has already of thought of this and is on the case, I hope so!
Ask and you shall be given, it was a good day of racing indeed! I only handicapped the Risen Star and managed to hit the exacta. I boxed Friesan Fire, Flying Pegasus and Indygo Mountain. I wasn’t entirely sure how the pace scenario was going to play out as there was no clear speed but I thought it might have ended up a little faster.
Friesan Fire and Flying Pegasus are both on my list but I’m interested to see what Indygo Mountain will do in a faster pace scenario. He definitely improved from the Lecomte and got caught in a bit a traffic just when he had some run so I’m not discounting him just yet. Uno Mas also improved from the Lecomte and had I watched the replay a little more closely I might have caught that he was closing at the end and was probably likely to improve. And, needless to say, Giant Oak’s trip was pretty rough, again! I’ll be keeping an eye on both of them as well.
War Echo looked great in the Silverbulletday. I threw a little money away in that race combining her with Just Jenda and Southern Yankee based on the parade. War Echo was the visual stand out in the parade and I can’t wait to see her again.
On the west coast I don’t really need to wax poetic about Stardom Bound too much. Although, does this mean I’ll end up liking Iavarone and Babe this year? I thought Pioneerof the Nile’s stretch drive was pretty eye popping and can’t believe that I’m interested in California horses this year. I guess anything is possible!
Crist has a good post about the “brave new world” of synthetic racing particularly as it pertains to Beyer Speed Figures. I don’t really use BSFs because they don’t take pace into account, and as Crist points out, Stardom Bound’s low BSF doesn’t tell the whole tale. I noticed last week the top two finishers of the Holy Bull had the lowest BSFs of the field, both at 76.
One similarity to last year’s crop is that, with the exception of the Spectacular Bid, the pace has been pretty moderate in almost every race. Is Notonthesamepage the only front running speed horse in the group or am I forgetting someone? I’d love to see what Indygo Mountain, and Flying Pegasus for that matter, would do in that kind of pace scenario!
And finally, Sarah and Charles were both in action yesterday at Aqueduct and Santa Anita respectively. Apparently Charles was in a couple of shots of the second episode of Jockeys, I think Sarah’s on to something with the drinking game idea. Cheers!
Don’t get me wrong, I love Curlin… I schlepped my exhausted self out to Belmont specifically to see him on Saturday and he did not disappoint. One of the many things I love about him is that he always shows up, a real pro.
I thought all of the stakes races at Belmont were great. I really liked Cocoa Beach but had her with Lemon Drop Mom instead of the gamely Ginger Punch. I discounted Dynaforce in favor of Communique over Mauralakana. Fab Strike was still impressive fighting back against Black Seventeen (E - I wish you were right!)… and I think Kodiak Kowboy (my choice with Fab Strike & First Defence) might have gotten there at 7F.
Last but not least was the performance that impressed me the most at Belmont, Grand Couturier in the Joe Hirsch… wow! And all this time I thought he was a yielding play against (which is why Shamdinan was my long shot in last year’s BC turf, and not Grand Couturier).
Curlin was the chestnut cherry on the excellent racing day cake. Swifty and I double high-fived as he crossed the line and let out a simultaneous and emphatic “YES!”… along with the rest of the smallish celebratory crowd.
But let’s not overlook the 50 ft woman, as Ernie likes to call her or Stardom Bound… her 2yo protege in the “Little Ladies”* Division who’s sometimes called Zenyatta Jr around the barn. These two put on one hell of a show and should not be overshadowed by Curlin’s transformation into racings 10 Million Dollar Man.
Zenyatta staying perfect while making the impressive Hysterical Lady look like an allowance level entrant trying to jump in class:
Stardom Bound, going 8 wide to show those other Little Ladies a thing or two:
Get your check books out, Stardom Bound will be part of a liquidation sale come November, but she’ll come with a reserve. I don’t suppose Fasig-Tipton accepts esnipe?
*Editor’s note: I’m going to call the Juvenile Fillies the Little Ladies as long the Ladies Classic name stands.
Additional editor’s note: while I know this post is not at all timely, I’m trying to get back in the habit of posting and this was a heck of a lot easier to start off with than trying to do the Marketing Summit and Task Force justice. Not to worry, I haven’t forgotten!
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