Ravel, Hello Sunday & Buzzard’s Bay break in the Native Diver. (Charles Pravata)

None of my picks did too well yesterday, although I didn’t handicap the Native Diver or Turf Cup, I just rooting for Ravel. In the Turf Cup I was rooting for Chief Running Bear and Obrigado, but as always, I’m always happy for the winner. Sun River dispelled any notion of being able to run only on firm turf!

I was looking over the PP for the Native Diver this morning trying to see what/if any indication there might have been for Heatseeker. A few things were notable, although I’m not convinced that I would have caught them.

In all of his route efforts except for 1, he was coming on in the final furlong… perhaps not so apparent on it’s own. But looking at Jerry Hollendorfer’s trainer stats, his sprint to route record is .22 and his 2 sprint to route record is .29. He also had a series of endurance building works.

Individually these bits of information aren’t so significant, but anyone who put them all together had a really nice $63 pay day!

On another note, it looked like Ravel got stuck in traffic so I’m not gonna throw in towel on my dreams of him having a kick a$$ 2008.

Evening Attire prior to the 2006 Excelsior Breeders’ Cup at Aqueduct (Sarah K. Andrew)

A very game Evening Attire ran down front running Barcola to win the Queens County Handicap.

The soon to be 10 year old looked astonishingly peppy in the parade, so much so I thought he was gonna wear himself out before the race! After running around like a 2 year old he seemed to take his customary gate nap, walking out as the race started.

He and Hunting sat quite far off the pace set by Barcola. He started to make up ground about half way through the backstretch and by the top of the stretch it was apparent that his pre-race pep was still in full effect. With his odd head bobbing run he poured it on to win by a nose.

I had him boxed with Nkosa Reigns as well as a box of Nkosa Reigns & Martial Asset + a tri box of Nkosa Reigns, Marital Asset and Hunting (who I thought might have done a little better).

What I thought was interesting about the old man is his last ‘2nd off’ start was his last win in addition to being the horse for the course.

Interestingly there was a story in the personal finance section of Market Watch about professional horseplayers. The subject was treated respectfully and within the context of investing.

There’s also a video that features DRF’s Dan Illman explaining how handicapping is just as analytical as researching the market. As always, Illman is a much needed well spoken ambassador for this area of our beloved sport. Well done!

I’ve been pretty busy the past couple of days and am now just catching up my news & blogs. I was delighted to see this in the Bloodhorse!

Already presented at several film festivals, “The First Saturday in May” received the award for best documentary and the HBO Film Producers Award at the Savannah Film Festival. The Hennegan brothers said they are seeking investors and sponsors to help fund the distribution of the movie, which is scheduled for release next spring approximately three weeks prior to the Derby.

Rock Out! Not mentioned in the article, but apparently at the screening, is that the release will be at Landmark Theaters in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Lexington, Louisville, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC.

In between meetings today, and prior to seeing that news item, I took a peak at my traffic and noticed that I was getting hits from searches on the film… can’t wait for it to be released, I know I’m making all of my friends go!

As always… go here and register for updates.

Earlier this week I was wandering around the internet and came across a site that some of you might enjoy. I was reading Teresa’s recap of the Women in Racing luncheon at Aqueduct and followed this link find out more about the documentary that was shown at the luncheon.

While reading about the documentary I noticed this…

For a look at how girls are learning to be bright, knowledgeable women through their affection for horses, take a look at The Girls Horse Club.

I was not one of those 12 year old horse crazy girls. I was into skateboarding and basketball. In fact I mowed lawns, ran errands, had garage sales, etc to save enough money to buy the 1977 30" Alva Pig that’s now in reissue. (I also got Gullwing Phoenix HPG IV trucks, Road Rider 4s and rad pads… for all you late 70s, 12 year old skate crazy kids, like me).

My step-sister and one my best friends were horse crazy girls, and they each had a horse. Both of them were up early before school to go the barn and right back to the barn after school. One rode English and the other Western. They both looooooooved their horses and worked so hard on their riding. I’m convinced it was the kind of devotion only a 12 year old girl can show.

I can’t remember my step-sister’s horses name but my friend Diana’s horse was Chante. I’m not sure what breed she was, but she was grey and not the most friendly of horses. My one memory of Chante was that Di had a sleigh and a couple of times when it snowed she would get it out and we would ride around town at night (we were of legal driving age at this point). Needless to say it was pretty cool riding around in a horse drawn sleigh!

When I got to Girls Horse Club I went right to the blog. The entries are great! All posted by girls, natch. I loved this one, it completely reminded me of Amy (my step-sis) and my friend Diana. Both of them still love horse and still ride and never became “too caught up in fashion to think about horses”.

So, without further adieu, I introduce you to Lady Cloud Devil… my perfect horse!

Note: you’ll need to allow pop-ups to view my perfect horse. I may even go make some more perfect horses.

Go, make a perfect horse, revisit or get to know your inner 12 year old horse crazy girl… and I hope you never become too caught up in fashion to think about horses!

My inner 12 year old just chuckled as I wrote that headline…

Alan’s recent excellent post on gut feelings/over thinking and handicapping inspired the current poll question. I really wanted to do a poll on handicapping style and what y’all use as the most important factors (speed, pace, class, work out patterns, etc) but couldn’t come up with a pithy way to frame it.

My preferred PP is straight up DRF. I haven’t ventured into the pace figs yet and my all Mac home network precludes me from Formulator. My friend Joan likes the Brisnet Premiums with the Prime Power Numbers (or whatever they’re called) but I like to come to those conclusions myself.

I’m still trying to get a real system going with note taking. My current “system” includes keeping all of my scribbled on PPs in several growing piles around my desk. About 80% of the time I remember when I have notes on a race and am able to find said notes. I’ve also gotten better at actually remembering races and trips without the aid of my notes.

My sequence of events are: Handicap, look at ML odds, watch race replays, read/watch race analysis. I don’t always watch race replays or read/watch analysis, but as Alan points out, it usually serves to reinforce what I’ve already decided on… usually.

As a wrap-up for the last poll, Bernardini was your preferred sire for Octave somewhat closely followed by Hard Spun (my choice). Interesting, there were not votes for Any Given Saturday or Street Sense.

During my morning procrastination that involves wandering aimlessly around the internet while sipping tea or snacking, I ended up at Upcoming (formerly Upcoming.org). I have an account there but hadn’t used it in well over a year. It’s part social networking, part promotional vehicle and part community “for discovering and sharing events”.

When last I was there it was a little project run by one person… I even got my first name as my username! They’ve since been bought by Yahoo and considerably jazzed up.

It works in a couple of different ways… you can select places, e.g., NYC, to have all events for that place on your upcoming home page. Anyone can list an event and you can indicate that you are either attending that event or watching it (meaning that you’re interested but perhaps not going). You can watch friend’s events as well. One of the newest features is that you can join and create groups and publish events to groups.

My first search was “horse racing”, natch… and I found listings for the 2008 Breeders’ Cup, Preakness & Belmont! They were listed by Dave, who clearly saw the potential for promotion. Naturally I marked the events accordingly and then started a Thoroughbred Racing Group (and made Dave co-moderator!).

I’ve already listed the NYRA Women in Racing Luncheon for tomorrow (while it’s a bit late, maybe someone will notice it and be on the look out for the next one) and Dave added the TV giveaway at Golden Gate Fields tomorrow. Side note: TV Giveaway?! Now that’s promotion!

So, go join Upcoming, join the Thoroughbred Racing Group and add your local events & races! See you there…