Not Exactly

Since this was past weekend was the first weekend in a loooong time that I wasn’t busy handicapping, I attended to many festering projects around GbG manor.

One them was what I refer to as the annual tax write off. The Lady and I ruthlessly edit our various belongings with the goal of donating as much as possible to a local thrift shop (that has great stuff btw).

I had been wondering about the location of the Exacta plaque for awhile. I got it in a thrift store in Stockholm in 1999 as a joke gift for The Lady as she has a thing about always being right. Not knowing an Exacta from lingenberry, I thought it was Swedish for exactly (it isn’t).

When I gave it to her, along with a few other thrift scores, she looked at the whole lot and shrugged. I specifically asked her “don’t you like this?”. I believe “eh” was the answer. I liked it, but she kept it and stuffed away somewhere (which is why we have to do a “space clearing” at least once a year).

At some point during this summer I remembered the Exacta and asked if she remembered where it was. She thought it was in her closet but didn’t want to deal with looking for it because it would mean having dig through an inordinate about of stuff.

Fast forward to this past weekend. The annual crap-be-gone yielded one the of the many eerie premonitions of my new found “hobby”. It’s worth noting that the Exacta is also my favorite and most frequently placed bet.

Now I just have to find a good place for it. As it stands at the moment it’s probably going to go right below a weird painting that consists of 9 horses and looks like a study in perspective by either a child or an undergrad painting student who’s major is not art… another weird precursor.

One Thousand and One Nights

Premium Tap in the parade prior to winning the Woodward in 2006 (Jane E Hill)

Which is how long it seems since we’ve seen Premium Tap.

Apparently Allam, as he’s known in Saudi Arabia, has won his two starts since gamely placing to Invasor in the Dubai World Cup. The good news is that we’re likely to see him again in Dubai, which means we’ll see him.

Premium Tap Wins in Saudi Arabia

Premium Tap Wins Again in Saudi Arabia

[Bloodhorse]

Notables from Elsewhere

Not sure how many of you read either Dan Illman’s or Steve Crist’s blog at DRF, but they’re both pretty great. Not only do each of them have their own distinct blogging style, they both have active comments and and conversations.

Today’s Formblog (Illman) has a particularly great discussion about synthetic track, breakdowns, drugs and the breeding industy. Here are some snippets:

A commentor writes:

It’s hard to buy into the idea that polytrack is saving horses when you review the recent Arlington meet, for example which saw several breakdowns. Also, there were many other horses vanned off after their races at Arlington and Del Mar, who may not factor into the fatality statistics. Polytrack is not the answer. The obvious answer, as we’ve discussed on this blog ad nauseam, is getting tough on the drug problem in the sport… not just on illegal substances, but the levels of approved legal ones. When a horse is loaded up on pain killers (like Cobra venom!!), there is nothing stopping that horse from going all out because they can’t feel the stress being placed on their joints.

…

executives to form a coalition aimed at eliminating drugs on a nationwide scale. Heck, it’s been done in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Why not here?

The answer is simple. The breeding industry won’t allow it to happen, and the racetracks won’t allow it to happen. A national no-tolerance policy would drastically reduce, at least in the short term, the number of racers in the United States. Valuable stallions that pass on bleeding or other unsoundness issues would be rendered worthless. Less racers means less breeding prospects (mares, stallions). Less breeding prospects means less money from public auction. Less racers means smaller fields. Smaller fields means less handle. And, that isn’t acceptable from an industry standpoint.

[he continues on for several more paragraphs with some more good points]

And that’s just part of the conversation… it’s worth it read the entire thing in context.

Over at Equinometrics, a blog you should be reading if your not, in his BC wrap up post Marshall makes this great point:

Hooray for the connections of Hard Spun who took a risk by entering him in the Classic despite the fact that he did not appear to be a 10 furlong horse and seemed to be a cut below the other top 3yos. His $1,000,000 earned for second place was as much as the entire purse for the Dirt Mile.

I know I thought they were idiots for not entering my beloved Hard Spun in the Dirt Mile. Guess who was wrong about that: me! (and a few other folks) Only 3 of my 10 voters thought he should be in the Classic. Hats off to you 3! Wienie note: I have to rig that Poll Archive page up a little better… it’s on my to do list.

And last but not least… are you sick of reading about the BC? What kind of champion are you, weakening in the final furlong… if you can hang on til the wire go read Randy Moss’ BC blog post. His on air charm is 100% transferable to his blog and he’s always got a good insight or two.

Broodmare$$ Gone Wild

Broodmares commanded top dollar during the auctions of the past few days while stallion prospects didn’t fare so well.

Coolmore and Darley were at it again Green Monkey style, this time over 5yo mare Playful Act. Darley won this round spending $10.5 million [DRF].

As it turns out, the Octave Drama I mentioned yesterday was also none other than Coolmore vs Darley. Coolmore “angrily” insisted that they had won the $4 million bid but the bid spotters didn’t spot them. Does that sort of thing ever happen at Christie’s or Sotheby’s?

Ferguson, representing Maktoum, signed the ticket for $4 millon after lively bidding that also involved Coolmore Stud and the Ran-Jan Stable of Bob Naify and Jan Vanderbos. But Coolmore’s team, including principal John Magnier and regular bidding representative Demi O’Byrne, angrily protested the sale, saying they had believed they had made the winning $4 million bid.

Read all about it here. [NTRA]

Speaking of Large Sums of Money

Today’s late Pick 4 at Aqueduct payed a whopping !46,913! A Pick 4! As you can guess, no favs won in the last 4 races.

6th: Ocean Goddess payed $59

7th: As Do I payed $56.50

8th: Sugar Shake payed $6

9th: Dancing Tin Man payed $14.90

Also not surprising that there’s another Pick 6 carryover of $154,615.

Over at Fasig-Tipton land, Valbenny beat out Super Freaky in the auction ring as well going for $1.2 million. Appealing Zophie went for $1.15, Cotton Blossom for $1.9, Irish Smoke got away for a meager $750K in comparison and one of my favs, the tough as nails Asi Siempre, went for $3 million to someone named Steve.

It was fun and alarming to watch. I loved how the auctioneer would chide the audience and throw in references to the lineage amid the stream of numbers. Occasionally when they felt the current bid was too low they would stop in the middle and talk up “the lot”.

Check in with Valerie at Foolish Pleasure for a full recap of the auction… I only watched a bit of it + she really knows her stuff about about breeding and lineages so she’ll have tons on insights.

Octave Auction Drama!

So I’ve gotten sucked into watching the Fasig-Tipton live auction here. I showed up just in time to see Round Pond go for $5+ million. Super Freaky went for $9,500,000.

Octave was just on the block and finished up at $4 million. When they brought the next horse into the ring, someone in the back started yelling. I couldn’t hear it but it was clearly regarding Octave’s auction. They asked him to and the buyer to go to the sales office to work it out with the sales director. Who knew it could be so dramatic!

Valbenny is up now…