Slew’s Tizzy and Joel Rosario winning the 2008 Native Diver (Charles Pravata)

My beloved Slew’s Tizzy returns to racing today in the Cornhusker at Prairie Meadows! It sort of feels like when your pet runs away from home and comes back several months after you’ve already resigned yourself to their absence.

The last we saw of Slew’s Tizzy he was in the Doug O’Neill barn where he had won the Native Diver in December of 2008 (pictured above) after a string of decent efforts (minus the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile). He had vastly improved with O’Neill, and while enjoyable as a fan, it was also always a bit of concern given that O’Neill is no stranger to drug violations. He ended up on Dan Illman’s disabled list with a stall injury and now has magically landed in the barn of Calder trainer Terrance Oliver.

I don’t know anything about Oliver, other than his win percentage is a dismal .06, his first time with team percentage is an equally dismal .09, his +180 days percentage is a respectable .17 and his dirt percentage is .09. Dirt isn’t Slew’s Tizzy’s preferred surface either, unless it’s muddy.

He’s still racing for Joseph LaCombe, who is also his breeder, so at the very least he hasn’t been dumped somewhere unsavory. He’s also reunited with Robby Albarado, which I take to be a very good sign. Let’s just say I’m cautiously optimistic and glad to know where he is… and of course rooting for him!

Update: He started off a bit slow, got into a good position and then faded about half way through the race. I’ll keep an eye out to see if he turns up on the work tab again. I hope they put him back on synthetics!

(Jason Moran)

Eagle-eyed photo Jason Moran spotted something interesting during Sunday morning workouts at Belmont.

Some insight from the morning work outs. On the inside is the very capable Munnings. On the outside, with I believe Johnny V., is a horse that was listed as completing the 5 Furlong work in 1:00.46 Breezing. Munnings was caught in the same time but was classified as doing it Handily, (note this photo is 30 or so yards after the finish line). Here is the kicker, the outside horse is an unnamed 2 year old (AP Indy-Madcap Escapade) that was bought for a million bucks in last year’s September Keeneland Sale. Think they were trying to figure out what they have here? Look out for this one.

Hmmm, very interesting indeed. And good work Jason!

Found this little gem while watching an interesting 2-year-old maiden replay from Belmont today (Tim Ice trainee, second place finisher was impressive too).

Enjoy your weekend!

Quality Road holds off Musket Man in the 2010 Met Mile (Jason Moran)

In an unusual and welcome turn of events, we’re having a year that’s not dominated by the 3-year-olds. Shy of Blind Luck, Evening Jewel and Lookin’ at Lucky you’d be hard pressed to find a consensus of fans jazzed about the youngins (sidebar: I’m still interested in Tapitsfly, Bickersons and Maximus Ruler). Too bad all the purse money is still showered on the 3-year-olds.

This is the first time since I’ve started paying attention (mid-2006) where the real interest, both with fans and the media, is with older horses. Zenyatta, Rachel Alexandra, Quality Road, Blame, Rail Trip, General Quarters, Life at Ten, St. Trinians, Goldikova, Gio Ponti, Musket Man, Warrior’s Reward and Bribon are currently running and in good form (and health!). I Want Revenge, Mine That Bird and Careless Jewel look likely to get back to business in the near future. And Arson Squad, Bullsbay, Macho Again and Munnings could all get back to form at any moment.

That’s a helluva lot of nice horses and I feel like I’m missing a few! While I’m not entirely sure how it happened, I hope this trend of nice older horses staying in training is not a fluke.

Player at Belmont today, looking like he just got kicked out of the P6 (Jason Moran)

You may think that the only thing I blog about these days is thanking sponsors, and you’d be right, in part. I’ll cover a few other items but not without thanking sponsors first!

NJSEA, the folks who run Monmouth and Meadowlands, have decided to continue to use the Hello Race Fans Ad Network to promote their summer activities. I’m happy to report that I’m still Surviving at the Shore (narrowly) and hope to make a trip to Monmouth this summer… and you should too! Check them out (by way of clicking on their ad) as they have a whole summers worth of cool stuff to promote.

Sam Houston loves all of Texas, and the Hello Race Fans Ad Network! They’ve widened their current geo-targeted campaign to include all of Texas, so all you fun-lovin’ Texans should check them out (by way of clicking on their ads!).

And finally, we welcome Churchill night racing to the network! They kick off their Friday night racing with a little disco. Of the many genres of music that I love, classic 70’s disco is the top of the list (I was singing Odyssey’s Native New Yorker to my dog just the other day. Inner Life’s Caught up in a One Night Love Affair (which I’m NOT having!) is also in high rotation on my ipod). Why go to some stupid bar on Friday night when you can stay home and play Churchill? Or, better yet, play Churchill from the bar, unless, of course, you’re in the Louisville area. In which case you should boogie on down to Churchill.

But seriously, many thanks to our sponsors. If you like the blogs and sites and in the Hello Race Fans Ad Network, you should occasionally click on the ads. Every click helps!

In other news, you’d be surprised how many people search for things like “how to bet horse racing” or “learn to bet on horse races”. It’s heartening to see HRF getting decent search traffic from these sorts of searches after the Triple Crown. Here a few of the search terms that led folks to Hello Race Fans! today:

learn to bet horse races

reading a tote board

how to bet on horse racing

simple tote

what to look for in horse behavior in post parade

filly triple crown

how to interpret horse racing forms

playing superfecta

horse lineage terminology

horse race lingo

Also heartening was that Rachel Alexandra going to the Fleur Di Lis was picked up by AP (via Lane Gold).

Finally, you can support your fav racing bloggers (or at least some of them!) by going to the first, presumably annual, Horse Racing Blogger Awards and voting. Voting closes June 21.

Monmouth Park

Let’s hope so! Best of luck to everyone playing Monmouth’s bold experiment today. Get your spreadsheets together (I’m doing that now), your notes in order and your cooler packed… summer is starting with or without you!

Players are certainly a buzz about the full competitive fields but one has to think that trainers must be jazzed about the bargain hunting possibilities that exist in the claiming ranks. For example, the 2nd today is a $5k claimer where many of the entrants had been running for a tag between $10k – $20k. And perhaps the other side of that coin is that owners can more easily liquidate while potentially winning more purse money. Owners with actual $5k claimers must be really bummed about this. At any rate, it should be interesting to see how it all plays out.

I put in my guesses picks for day one of Survival at the Shore.

Race 8: Wide Open Road: last win at the distance off a similar break

Race 9: Da Plane: love the works, cut back looks perfect

Race 10: Supah Prince: big jump for high % trainer, should do ok w/the pace & distance

Today’s the last day to register… I have no doubt you’ll do better than me, so what are you waiting for? Good luck everyone!

It’s out! Bloodhorse reported today that the documentary of John Henry, the “Steel Driving Racehorse“, is now available on DVD. This trailer has been out for awhile so it’s nice to see the project finally come to fruition. I already bought my copy, and am looking forward it!

We’ve been lucky these past few years that talented filmmakers such as the Hennegan Brothers and John Corey have been able to independently produce films on racing, particularly when the Secretariat film looks to have taken many a liberty. I don’t think one can really complain about that when one considers the trade off. I found the trailer completely emotionally manipulative, and I’m a crabby old shut-in! I can only imagine how well it will work on it’s intended audience, particularly given that there were reports of cheering in the audience during every race. I mean, that’s Disney’s specialty, right? Good for us that they chose racing to work their (scary!) manipulative magic!

Let’s hope that some of those film goers will take it upon themselves to search out more of racing’s great stories, because racing is full of great stories. And let’s hope that some other independent film projects, such as Boys Club (or Freak, it’s changed names a couple of times) about Julie Krone and Jock, the Movie about the first generation of female jockeys, see the light of day.

(Mark_Baratelli)

Sponsors! In a time of shrinking budgets it’s extremely cheery making when an advertiser choses the Hello Race Fans Ad Network to publicize their events and products. A big thanks to our current our advertisers!

Sam Houston is running a geo-targeted campaign, so if you’re in the Houston area and you see the Sam Houston ad, click on over and check them out… and get yourself to the track!

Totebet offers a sign-up bonus, rebates and co-mingles funds into the track’s pools. If you’re looking for a new platform, click on over!

And finally, Monmouth/Meadowlands has started a campaign with us… their incredibly fun Survival at the Shore game is back! Click on over and sign-up!

Again, many thanks to our sponsors! We hope we can help get the word out about their products… and in turn we’re grateful not only for the support of independent content publishers (and our Fan Education site, which is what we use our portions of the ad revenue for!), but for the chance to help them broaden the reach of their brands.

Please visit our sponsors when you see their ads!

(And now that we’ve reached part 3, I will retire Reasons to be Cheerful, even if there continue to be more reasons)

(Jason Moran)

I almost forgot… the complete lack of alarmist hoo-ha over a filly in the Kentucky Derby is DEFINITELY a reason to be cheerful. Thanks Rachel!

But not to worry, there’s still plenty of fail to go around!

(wendyu) The Homeboykris crew on the walk over, the embodiment of cheerful!

Sure, I could focus on all my horrid plays yesterday and how I stupidly left Ice Box off my tickets, especially since 1) I deliberated between using him and Mission Impazible and 2) I had Paddy O’Prado on my tickets, but I’m going to choose to be cheerful today, after all, it’s not often one calls the Derby winner publicly (so I’m going to enjoy it while I can… and sorry for the long sentence).

Since I’m not blogging a much these days, here are some things I had to say elsewhere about Super Saver… over at Twitter there was a discussion going on re: Super Saver and at least one esteemed colleague (@o_crunk) wasn’t buying him. My thought was this:

SS could pick up the pieces if he rates like he did in Ark Derby and there’s a pace meltdown. least that’s how I look at it

Reading Val’s piece for Hello Race Fans! on pedigree and Derby Distance + the reports out of Churchill that he was looking good in the morning definitely informed my thought process. Over at the other evil social media site, Facebook, I commented to a friend about my choice:

The services of one Mr. Calvin Borel aren’t too shabby either… but more than that, I think he got something out of his last two races and looked to me be getting underway at the end of the race last out. From what I’ve read his breeding suggests the distance should be no problem, which lines up with how I interpreted what I saw. I’m pretty jazzed about his odds too! (editor’s note: before they went south)

(Note: Facebook is so evil in fact that I can’t even directly link to that post!)

So, while I would have liked to have turned that into a nice score, my future wagers kept the weekend from being a total blood bath… and my parade play of Le Grand Cru in the Westchester. I’m now one for one at Belmont!

Also cheery making is that both Oaks and Derby handle were up, despite the massive AmTote crash that effected XpressBet, TwinSpires and a few tracks. On the bright side, at least it was clear on TwinSpires that a bet had gone through or not! On the downside I’m still annoyed over TwinSpiresTV blocking the Churchill simulcast signal. I’m still trying to find out more about that, so far I’ve gathered that Churchill was broadcasting it’s signal and leaving it up to the individual outlets to decide what to do with it, but nothing specifically about TwinSpiresTV.

At any rate, I’m still remaining cheerful… and might even do a couple of more blog posts!