This weekend’s Florida Derby looks a little easier with Eskenderya’s removal to the Wood Memorial; in his absence, Rule is the deserving favorite as the only horse in the field with a US graded stakes win.  Handicappers quite rightly don’t like betting horses at such short prices, but they may get [...]]]>

¡Bienvenida a Florida, Bambera!

This weekend’s Florida Derby looks a little easier with Eskenderya’s removal to the Wood Memorial; in his absence, Rule is the deserving favorite as the only horse in the field with a US graded stakes win.  Handicappers quite rightly don’t like betting horses at such short prices, but they may get a break – come post time, Barbaro’s brother, Lentenor, could well be the favorite (even though it’s his first start on dirt).  It’s true that Radiohead won the G2 Norfolk Stakes at Ascot as a 2-year-old, and he looked good in an allowance race on dirt, but does he really want to go much further than a mile?  I suspect not at present, but I Might Be Wrong.

Things are a little more exciting in the distaff ranks (again) with Christine Daae finally stepping up to stakes competition.  She’ll take on the talented Amen Hallelujah in the Bonnie Miss – perhaps they will kick off a rivalry.  Many eyes will be on much-touted Venezuelan import Bambera in the Rampart Stakes; a good effort here will send her to take on Zenyatta in the Apple Blossom – but she’ll have a jinx (plus more weight than she’s ever carried) to overcome.  Nevertheless, it’s a good opportunity to get a first look at her in this country – hopefully she will prove to be a star here as well.

Those disappointed by the NTRA’s epic fail last weekend can give them another shot (or enjoy yet more failure) for the Florida Derby, which they are also attempting to webcast.  I’d advise outsourcing the webcast, since there seems to be too little investment in real technology (and techies) to make it happen – why not just give Randy Moss his podcast back?  That should be easy enough to accomplish, and living up to limited expectations would at least be a start…

Let’s begin with a basic premise: getting a check for second is not a failure, but a non-working website is.  With that in mind, let’s examine the events of the past weekend. For some reason, American racing at the highest level is hung up on success or ‘failure’ in an individual [...]]]>

This means you, NTRA

Let’s begin with a basic premise: getting a check for second is not a failure, but a non-working website is.  With that in mind, let’s examine the events of the past weekend. For some reason, American racing at the highest level is hung up on success or ‘failure’ in an individual race – while this is most likely because our best horses simply do not race as often as their counterparts in Europe, Australia and Japan do, it serves as a useful reminder that we might take a longer view.

Let’s look at Goldikova’s career – it took her four races to get her first win for the year in 2008, and in her initial 2009 race (seven months after her first Breeders’ Cup Mile triumph), she finished a dismal seventh.  Yet there were no calls to send her to the breeding shed or wailing and gnashing of teeth that she was past her best – she just went back to tougher training, returned to the races again about two months later and won her next three races.  There was minor upset when she finished third in her prep race immediately before she came to defend her Breeders’ Cup title, but her connections simply took it as a sign that she needed the race; and, indeed, she put in another sparkling performance at Santa Anita.

Watching Rachel Alexandra’s performance on Saturday, I certainly did not see a wannabe broodmare (and I’d love to see it demonstrated that life as a broodmare is somehow ‘safer’ than life on the track for a top-level filly or mare – that certainly does not ring true anecdotally) – just a horse at sub-optimal fitness.  She could easily follow Goldikova’s example and be back to her usual freakish self by May or June – and I’m pleased to see her connections are heading in that direction.  While it’s a shame for everyone at Oaklawn who worked to make a showdown in the Apple Blossom a possibility, I would rather see them meet further down the line, when both are at peak fitness – although I am hopeful that Zardana will take on her stablemate, Zenyatta, in the race.

And so to Zenyatta, who is being rather overlooked simply because ‘Zenyatta wins‘ is less of a story than ‘Rachel finishes second’ – as expected, she’s still perfection personified (although it was a less ‘pretty’ race than we might normally see from her, but that’s more down to the way things unfolded).  It’s wonderful to see her unbeaten streak continue (it’s churlish to argue with 15-0, unless we’re talking about Pepper’s Pride), but I know I’m not the only one wondering if the seam that opened for her on Saturday would have been found at another track – had she been running at, say, Belmont, she would have had quite a target on her back à la Smarty Jones.  That’s not to say she would not have overcome it, since great horses make their own luck, but it would have been a real test for her – hopefully we’ll see her travel further afield (beyond Oaklawn and, one presumes, Churchill Downs) this year.

But before we leave Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra news, we must address the massive NTRA FAIL in their webcast of both races.  One wonders what sort of traffic they were expecting if the other ten people complaining about it on Twitter could not get in – and it should have been simple enough to scale up the bandwidth in any event.  After all, we were able to keep the Penn Vet server running when Barbaro was put down (despite no warning, not that we expected one) just by farming some predictable high-traffic items (e.g. photos, video) out to another server.  It’s not hard. They would be wise to follow the #runserverlessbiz tweets from #SXSW – or just compare clouds and make a decision.  And here’s a little more free consulting advice (I do normally charge a lot for something this straightforward, but I’m making a nice exception) – putting the video stream behind a login is a huge turnoff to casual or would-be fans.  Sure, you want to gather data on users, but why not do it after they are already invested? I’m sure the stats should a huge dropoff between clicking on the ‘live’ link and actual signups – and that’s not surprising.  The call to sign up needs to be somewhere else – unless the whole point of the login was to deter potential users.  In that case, well done!

Check back tomorrow, when we’ll get back to reviewing the 3-year-olds, especially Odysseus, Lookin At Lucky and Sidney’s Candy…

Sometimes, however, it’s a trickier business. Giacomo? Where [...]]]> More often than not, once the Kentucky Derby result is in the books, it seems obvious in retrospect. Who was going to beat Big Brown? Street Sense was naturally going to win that day, and Barbaro was most assuredly the class of the field.

Sometimes, however, it’s a trickier business. Giacomo? Where did he come from? Charismatic went off as a longshot and I have yet to meet anyone who predicted Lil E. Tee would take the roses. This year fell into that more perplexing category with Mine That Bird flying by the rest of the field on the rail. It was vintage Calvin Borel, and while it was not a move he needed to make on the stunning Rachel Alexandra the day before in the Oaks, it was not unimpressive in its own right, nor was the winning time glacially slow (especially given the wet conditions). Mine That Bird’s margin of victory may not have been anything like Rachel Alexandra’s twenty-plus lengths, but it still stands as the second-largest in Derby history.

The difference with the longshot winners is that it’s much harder to place them in the racing firmament the instant they cross the Churchill Downs wire – hindsight may be 20/20, but it’s going to take a little longer this time to know when to start employing it. Will Mine That Bird take his place among previously-unheralded greats like Canonero II or fellow gelding Derby winner Exterminator? Perhaps he will fall into a middle category and be unfairly overlooked, like Charismatic – or there’s always the chance his victory was a fluke and he will be remembered with horses like Gallahadion or Dark Star, neither of whom ever won another major race.

As of now, we don’t know where he fits – and that makes the next few weeks very interesting indeed. Let’s enjoy watching the next chapter in racing history unfold.

While there is much excitement in certain quarters over the upcoming debut of brother, Barbaro’s brother Nicanor, it’s a good idea to temper expectations with a bit of reality. Most horses never compete at racing’s highest level. Some show early promise that [...]]]> Note: A revised version of this post appears at The Blood-Horse.

While there is much excitement in certain quarters over the upcoming debut of brother, Barbaro’s brother Nicanor, it’s a good idea to temper expectations with a bit of reality. Most horses never compete at racing’s highest level. Some show early promise that suggests they have what it takes – but more often than not, things don’t pan out. Let’s examine the case of another horse bred and (formerly) owned by Roy and Gretchen Jackson – the once-promising filly Sweetest Kiss. They were quite high on her in 2007 (Roy, himself, expressed great enthusiasm for her at a work event and I’ve been tracking her ever since). Unfortunately for the horse and everyone’s bank accounts, she has never quite lived up to those early expectations.

Things began well; an auspicious turf debut at Laurel under the tutelage of Barclay Tagg, followed quickly by an allowance win on the Preakness undercard led to her inclusion in Globeform’s 50 to Follow list of 2007 (along with the likes of Curlin, Einstein, and Rags to Riches and Wait a While). Tougher allowance company did not seem to suit her in her next race, but she still managed to hit the board in two subsequent races with comparatively easier competitors.

2008 did not prove to be the highlight of her career; she did earn a little money at Gulfstream Park, then after another disappointing effort at Keeneland, she won her first claiming race. She was then claimed for $35,000 – and stopped winning (so far) altogether.

New owner Barry R. Ostrager (owner of Questroyal Stud in New York) first tried her at Saratoga with trainer Carl J. Domino, but she was a gate scratch in August (I don’t have details on why). He then moved Sweetest Kiss from the New York/Mid-Atlantic circuits to Suffolk Downs and into the care of trainer Michael J. Collins. She began there at the $20,000 claiming level, but didn’t get a share of any purses until her third race at the track – she finally picked up a show spot in late September, six days after her previous race. However, even sticking at the $16,000 claiming level did not seem to suit her talents; she lost her final three races of the year.

Sweetest Kiss is back to try her luck again tomorrow, this time at Beulah Park in Ohio, with a new trainer, Melinda Johnson, listed and at a new claiming price. Here are her current details:

Sweetest Kiss is entered to run on January 10, 2009 at BEULAH PARK.

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Race: 4 Distance: Five Furlongs Surface: Dirt Age: 5 Sex: Mare
Race Type: Claiming Purse: $ 5,100
Jockey: Edgar Paucar
Trainer: Melinda Johnson
Race conditions: FOR FILLIES AND MARES THREE YEARS OLD AND UPWARD. Three Year Olds, 114 lbs.; Older, 124 lbs. Non-winners of a race since December 10, 2008 Allowed 2 lbs. A race since November 10, 2008 Allowed 4 lbs. Claiming Price $7,500 (Races where entered for $6,250 or less not considered In Weight Allowances) (Ohio Registered Foals Preferred).
Last Raced: 11/08/2008 at SUFFOLK DOWNS in Race 8
Finish Position: 9th
Last Reported Workouts:
12/15/2008-MOUNTAINEER CASINO RACETRACK & RESORT-Four Furlongs-Dirt Muddy-54:20 Breezing
08/18/2008-SARATOGA-Five Furlongs-Turf training Firm-1.03:00 Breezing
07/30/2008-SARATOGA-Four Furlongs-Turf training Firm-48:44 Breezing

Running against Ohio-breds for a share of a $ 5,100 purse is probably not what her breeders hoped for Sweetest Kiss, but there’s nothing unusual about her career – she’s just proven to be a typical racehorse, not a star. While her winnings are certainly respectable (over $84,000), she’s still not making good economic sense; her sire, Thunder Gulch, stood for $65,000 the year she was conceived (he’s down to $15,000 now), and of course there have been expenses for feed, vet visits, training, etc. – but at least she made it to the track in the first place.

Here’s hoping her first race of 2009 can get her back on a winning track – at least as a confidence-builder if not a money-spinner. And as for Nicanor, we’ll just have to wait and see – at least he is actually preparing for a racing debut, which is considerably further along than his older half-brother, Man in Havana, ever got in the racing game.

Update: Sweetest Kiss was scratched prior to post-time.