Majestic Warrior schooling in the paddock at Saratoga (Jessie Holmes)
I may have to sneak over the office this weekend to play the extremely enticing Saturday Fairgrounds card. In addition to a full card, this weekend is also Pool 2 in the Futures wagers.
The Louisana Derby is the debut for several very promising 3 year olds…
The field also includes undefeated west coast shipper Yankee Bravo, undefeated Zayat Stables J Be K, and a host of youngins that could be teetering on a breakout race such as Unbridled Vicar (my fav second stringer), Blackberry Road, local My Pal Charlie and the extremely fully loaded combo of LaPenta/Zito’s Stevil.
There’s someone else though… who is it? Hmmm, I know there was someone else.
Ah yes, Pyro:
It looks like there might actually be some pace in this race with J Be K, although his prior two were sprints so we’ll see. Is it just me or is War Pass the only confirmed speed horse of the whole lot?
At any rate, looks like a fun weekend… I better get back to work if I have a hope in hell of handicapping later in the week!
Patrick had the pleasure of watching the Battaglia as it happened but the replay is up now up KentuckyDerby.com so get thyself over there to watch it!
That was a seriously impressive move. It’s not YouTube yet, but her performance in the Caressingh at Churchill as a 2yo on the turf was startlingly similar (official race replay from Churchill, no embedding).
On another note, yesterday was a day for longshots. Besides Absolute Cindy ($41.60) there was Malibu Moonshine ($31.40) in the Stymie, Ever a Friend ($20.60) in the Kilroe Mile and Heatseeker ($16) in the Big Cap. While my hunch bet of Great Hunter didn’t work out, I did manage to cash my first ticket of the year with Malibu Moonshine!
I just happen to turn on the OTB channel about 15 minutes before the Stymie. I was eating lunch and watch the parade and the both Malibu Moonshine and Temporary Saint looked great in the paddock and parade (wish I had boxed them!). I like to practice my visual handicapping when I’m not able to handicap proper and this just happen to be one of those times when I synched-up doing well with actually placing a bet. Needless to say, I was jumping up down like a crazy person in front of my TV.
On another note, I love the way Evening Attire looks when he runs. He looks a bit like a cartoon character with neck stuck so far out and kind of low. It’s very endearing.
No time for handicapping this weekend, but I’m gonna throw a little money on Great Hunter in the Big Cap. He’s been steadily improving each time out and I thought he did relatively well in the Sham.
I’ve been locked in a conference room for the better part of two days so I haven’t been able to weigh on the Breeders’ Cup marketing revamp… but now you can with the latest poll!
As for the last poll, the majority of you were just glad to see the whole Green Monkey era come to a close and many of you thought it was a shame he was the equivalent of a child star, dogged by the press and not able to come into his own. Farewell Green Monkey… for now.
As for the Breeders’ Cup goings-ons, my esteemed colleagues covered it well…
And Patrick reminds us that not all steps toward growth are easy + there’s a great conversation in the comments, check it out.
Marketing is super easy to poke fun it… I do it all the time! But like most things, it’s not as easy as it looks, everyone “thinks they can do it” and it usually takes a lot of trail and error. My guess is that we’ll see these ideas tweaked along the way. I wonder what kind of market testing they did, if any. I’m happy to volunteer for that!
My personal wish list of changes:
1. Change the 2 day card to Saturday and Sunday if you want to split the Championship races across the days… some of us work! (although I’ll be taking the day off, but they already have me as a fan).
2. Change the name back to Distaff! I appreciate the sentiment of trying to equate it to the “Mens” Classic… I didn’t know what the hell a Distaff was when I first got hooked on racing, but I learned… don’t mess with tradition here.
I have a suggestion for the “programs focused on women’s health”… quick, what’s the leading cause of death of women? Heart Disease. Why not educate doctors on how to take this as seriously as they do with men. A friend of mine in her early 40s had a heart attack that probably could have been prevented if her doctor hadn’t dismissed her persistent indigestion and shooting pains in her arm (classic symptoms). If a man had presented these symptoms to his doctor he’d be on his way to the cardiac unit faster than you can say Ladies’ Classic! My point? Maybe it’s not the women who need to be educated about “women’s health issues”.
I’d actually love to see more a educational bent with a tie-in to racing. Perhaps something similar to the Women of the Backstretch luncheon as a “interested in learning about the industry?” kind of thing. And let’s not forget handicapping seminars! Unlike men, women wouldn’t be too proud to take them! Pardon, was that my sexism showing?
I leave you now with the last (at least for awhile) BC Distaff… and in this Lady’s opinion the most exciting race on the card.
My beloved Slew’s Tizzy is running in the 7th at Santa Anita today… a 100k optional claimer for 4yo & up. He’s the only one entered for a tag. Giant Gizmo and Warning Zone are the others that are familiar to me.
I’m interested to see if he’s claimed, I feel like he just needs to find the right situation to really flourish. Getting him on the artificial surface is a step in the right direction but he didn’t do anything last out. Today’s race is at his best distance. Well, fingers crossed for a good outcome for him, perhaps there’s someone out there who sees his potential and can bring it out.
Update: After making my initial post I noticed that Doug O’Neill was listed as the trainer, not Greg Fox but Slew’s Tizzy was still wearing the Joseph LaCombe Stables silks. Very interesting. Garrett Gomez also had the mount, I also think that was a first.
He actually ran a really nice race and showed some signs of life. He sat mid-pack, came on in the final furlong to place to Giant Gizmo… and he looked good doing it. It looks like he didn’t get claimed. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what Doug O’Neill will do with him!
As you may have noticed, I’ve been messing around with my new “Derby Madness” section. I don’t need as much of an attention span to code as I do to handicap and no one loses any money!
I made the news from KentuckyDerby.com widget myself. I used Widgetbox so anyone who wanted to grab it could. And of course, you should grab The First Saturday in May widget to keep up to date on screenings, the DVD release and so on. Also, another big shout out to Jessica at Railbird for her excellent stat compilation via google docs.
I have a couple of other things I’d like to add, namely my standings in the various RTTR leagues and perhaps a few other things.
My apologies to folks who have their monitor resolution set to 1024×768 (48% of my viewers!), according to BrowserCam you’re getting an annoying horizontal scrollbar, even though the content is contained within the window!
I wrestled with the layout for quite a while to try and get rid the annoying scroll bar to no avail. Also, my apologies to folks at monitor resolutions higher than 1024×768 because I had to mash everything in Derby Madness far too close together, so it looks smashed and busy. See, no one wins!
At any rate, please feel free to leave any feedback re: annoying scroll bars, smashed and too busy content, now the site takes long to load or anything that might be helpful (or not).
I haven’t had much luck with weekends as of late, what with my heat being out all of last weekend and now this weekend with annoying head cold. So, I’m taking a pass on the festivities at Gulfstream today. Since I haven’t cashed a ticket yet this year, perhaps it’s for the best!
I did manage to put a couple of small bets on yesterday on the Gulfstream Park Turf Stakes to no avail. But Einstein looked great and I’m so happy for Helen Pitts that no one has swooped in taken him from her. Dancing Forever looked pretty great too and it’s always nice to see a decent exacta payout ($126.20)!
As for the Fountain of Youth, any of the following would be great for my various RTTR stables: Court Vision, Anak Nakal, Z Humor, Make the Point, Monba and Cool Coal Man. That’s pretty decent coverage.
Shamdinan in the paddock at Belmont for the Man O’ War (Sarah K. Andrew)
I love Shamdinan. What’s not to love… he’s handsome, talented and his name is really fun to say. Shamdinan, Shamdinan. I could say that all day!
However, I have one word of caution about the handsome and talented Shamdinan, he likes his turf soft. Knowing this about him is one of the only reason why he was one of the only tickets I cashed at the Breeders’ Cup.
In addition to his very nice performance over the soft turf at Monmouth, his win in the Secretariat was over good turf. His two 5th place showings came over firm turf. Currently, the turf at Gulfstream is listed as firm.
Mind you, I’m too sniffly, sneezy and eye watery to handicap right now or would be looking at Gulfstream Turf Stakes to see who I think has the best chance today. I do love that Thorn Song and would imagine I might just put a little sentimental money on him.
