Horse Racing Random

[dryrunguy]

I will never understand this sport. The idea of "claiming" just does not register in my brain.
"Well, no, sir, you are not claiming my horse. It is MINE!".
Hope it will be good for you and your buddies, Dry.

If you run them in a claiming race because that's where you think they can get a good check, and they get claimed, you have to let them go.

Compare that to running them in allowance or stakes races where you know they'll lose--and probably lose badly--and your share of the purse money, if any at all, is miniscule.

The best tennis-related analogy I can think of would be the difference between playing the ITF circuit, and getting some wins here and there, or playing on the Challenger circuit and being pretty sure you'll lose in the first round. Except, of course, tennis players aren't for sale. Not a perfect analogy at all.

[dryrunguy]

This sums it up. From the leader of our partnership.

[dryrunguy]

After several failed attempts to get Doc Ballard into a race, we finally got one that filled. He'll run Sunday in the third race at Keeneland. It's just 2-year-olds, 7 furlongs on dirt, maiden claiming at $20K. That's still probably not as much distance as he really wants. But we'll take it.

I really like him in this spot. It's not a strong field at all. In fact, the field is so weak that I'd be tempted to bet one of the two first-time starters. It won't take much to beat this field.

EXCEPT...

One of the first-time starters is a Wesley Ward trainee sired by Curlin (a hot, hot sire producing scads of winners) and out of a multi-stakes winning mare sired by Into Mischief who won 10 of her 20 lifetime starts, including a Grade 2 stakes race, and earned $891K in purse money. Pretty impressive stuff, right?

But he'll be for sale for $20K in his debut. And by the looks of his training works to date, $20K is way overpriced. That's how this works sometimes. A stellar pedigree doesn't always translate to the track. But he'll go off as the favorite for the Wesley Ward factor alone. His win rate with first-time starters is obscene. But I can't believe that, with that pedigree, they didn't at least take a chance at a maiden special race on the first out so he couldn't be claimed. That said, I'm pretty sure Wesley knows what he's doing.

BTW, the owners of the dam paid a $175K stud fee to breed that mare to Curlin. Once.

[dryrunguy]

After several failed attempts to get Doc Ballard into a race, we finally got one that filled. He'll run Sunday in the third race at Keeneland. It's just 2-year-olds, 7 furlongs on dirt, maiden claiming at $20K. That's still probably not as much distance as he really wants. But we'll take it.

I really like him in this spot. It's not a strong field at all. In fact, the field is so weak that I'd be tempted to bet one of the two first-time starters. It won't take much to beat this field.

EXCEPT...

One of the first-time starters is a Wesley Ward trainee sired by Curlin (a hot, hot sire producing scads of winners) and out of a multi-stakes winning mare sired by Into Mischief who won 10 of her 20 lifetime starts, including a Grade 2 stakes race, and earned $891K in purse money. Pretty impressive stuff, right?

But he'll be for sale for $20K in his debut. And by the looks of his training works to date, $20K is way overpriced. That's how this works sometimes. A stellar pedigree doesn't always translate to the track. But he'll go off as the favorite for the Wesley Ward factor alone. His win rate with first-time starters is obscene. But I can't believe that, with that pedigree, they didn't at least take a chance at a maiden special race on the first out so he couldn't be claimed. That said, I'm pretty sure Wesley knows what he's doing.

BTW, the owners of the dam paid a $175K stud fee to breed that mare to Curlin. Once.

It was a strange race.

Doc Ballard broke as well as he ever has in five races. But then most everyone passed him shortly after the break. And he was one of two horses in the back of the pack and trailing badly. Corey Lanerie (the jockey) moved him up a few spots late in the backstretch and sustained the bid all the way around the turn and into the stretch.

Doc ultimately finished 3rd, about 7 lengths behind the winner. This was on a Keeneland dirt track that generally isn't nice to horses that finish late.

So except for breaking well and then falling to the back of the field, it was a good race. He finished beautifully. It probably adds further weight to our feeling that he really wants longer races than 7 furlongs.

He got $4085 in purse money. That will cover his barn bill for the month. Unfortunately, he's several months behind on this front.

I'd love to give him a whirl on turf. If he truly is a closer, that surface should be more friendly to his style. Gulfstream or Tampa Bay may be his only turf options given the time of year. But we'll see.

He's such a strange horse.

BTW, 4 horses in the race were claimed, including the Wesley Ward 2nd-place finisher I mentioned in the quoted post. They clearly wanted to get rid of him--and they did.

Doc was NOT claimed. So we keep him.

[dryrunguy]

This is the field for Saturday's Breeder's Cup Classic. If you haven't been paying attention, there's all sorts of buzz around Flightline, a 4-year-old that skipped the Triple Crown trail last year because he wasn't ready. In fact, he didn't even run for the first time until the week before the 2021 Kentucky Derby.

He doesn't race often, which is a fair criticism, but when he runs, he has been unbelievably good and is undefeated in five career starts over 2 years. The comparisons to Secretariat aren't THAT outlandish given the speed figures he's been putting up.

But Flightline will be the heavy favorite to win this year's Breeder's Cup Classic, probably in gate to wire fashion.

The one knock on him? He's never run at Keeneland, the site of this year's Classic. Horses CAN be finicky about the Keeneland dirt.



And here's his last race in the TVG Pacific Classic on September 3, in which he put up an Equibase speed figure of 128. That's obscene. But he's never run two races as close together as the Pacific Classic and the Breeder's Cup Classic (less than 2 months apart).

[JazzNU]

He doesn't race often, which is a fair criticism, but when he runs, he has been unbelievably good and is undefeated in five career starts over 2 years. The comparisons to Secretariat aren't THAT outlandish given the speed figures he's been putting up.

But Flightline will be the heavy favorite to win this year's Breeder's Cup Classic, probably in gate to wire fashion.

Sounds like a betting trap if ever I've heard one. That 5 career starts over 2 years is truly ridiculous.

[dryrunguy]

He doesn't race often, which is a fair criticism, but when he runs, he has been unbelievably good and is undefeated in five career starts over 2 years. The comparisons to Secretariat aren't THAT outlandish given the speed figures he's been putting up.

But Flightline will be the heavy favorite to win this year's Breeder's Cup Classic, probably in gate to wire fashion.

Sounds like a betting trap if ever I've heard one. That 5 career starts over 2 years is truly ridiculous.

That very well may be true, Jazz. Horse racing Twitter has been booming with "the case against Flightline"-type posts. I have two major problems with him: 1) He's never run two races this close together, and 2) He's never raced at Keeneland. That said, he did a training work at Keeneland Saturday morning. Went 4 furlongs in 1 minute and change. That was the fourth fastest of 62 horses the worked at 4 furlongs that morning. Quite good. But a work and race are not the same thing.

The problem is I can't find anyone else in the field to beat him. He's just THAT good. (When he runs.)

[dryrunguy]

Just. Too. Good. Flightline is the 4 horse. He put up an Equibase speed figure of 127--just one point below his career best in his last race in the Pegasus 1 month ago.

The 6 horse, Epicenter, who finished 2nd in the Derby and the Preakness earlier this year, was pulled up on the backstretch--right front leg injury. He will have surgery tomorrow morning. So it looks like he will be okay and eventually see stallion duty, but his racing career is probably over. Huge credit to jockey Joel Rosario for realizing fairly early in the race that something was amiss and easing the horse. This will be his only race this year where Epicenter didn't win or finish second in 8 starts. Epicenter's career earnings are just shy of $3 million.

[dryrunguy]

But the race of the day was the Breeder's Cup Filly and Mare Distaff. It ended with a three-horse photo at the wire. (The #1 horse won by a snot bubble over a long shot, Blue Stripe, and the famed Clairiere.)

[JazzNU]

I watched it. I was impressed. But not nearly impressed enough for these Secretariat comparisons. Way too much, too soon.

And while I was impressed, I didn't come away thinking he was the be all and end all. I came away thinking, the field was a small one and there seemed to be only one single horse willing to truly challenge Flightline from the start and to go for broke and go for the win and be willing to finish out of the top 3 if they couldn't get it done. The others were only too willing to settle for 2nd in this race and it showed from very early on.

[dryrunguy]

I watched it. I was impressed. But not nearly impressed enough for these Secretariat comparisons. Way too much, too soon.

And while I was impressed, I didn't come away thinking he was the be all and end all. I came away thinking, the field was a small one and there seemed to be only one single horse willing to truly challenge Flightline from the start and to go for broke and go for the win and be willing to finish out of the top 3 if they couldn't get it done. The others were only too willing to settle for 2nd in this race and it showed from very early on.

I think you're exactly right, Jazz. Irad and Life is Good's connections clearly went for the win and saw only one way to do it--run as fast as you can for as long as you can. Everyone else was running for second before they even went into the gate. (One exception to that would be Rich Strike--he's a closer, and his best bet was to hope Life is Good and Flightline would set a torrid pace and wouldn't be able to sustain it. That turned out to be true for Life is Good. But not Flightline.)

Meanwhile, here is my favorite tweet about the race:

[dryrunguy]

And Flightline has been retired. He will stand at Lane's End. I'll venture to guess that his stud fee will be about $200K LFSN (live foal, stand and nurse).

[ti-amie]

Definitely not Secretariat-ish. Secretariat took control early and just romped to the finish. The other horses were never in the same frame camera wise with him.

[JazzNU]

And Flightline has been retired. He will stand at Lane's End. I'll venture to guess that his stud fee will be about $200K LFSN (live foal, stand and nurse).

Retired?!? That is wild. He's only going to be remembered by the horse racing aficionados, which I guess is plenty to make a mint off of in breeding, but just wow.

Gotta be honest. I was suspicious before when @dry posted about him and how few races he competed in. This significantly increases my suspicions.

[JazzNU]

Favorite tweet I've seen so far about this -