Friday Fame or Famine?
Real Writing on Racing 💯
Thursday was a nice day weather-wise though a fast moving storm dumped about 10 minutes worth of more water on Saratoga Springs around 7pm. The “highlight” of yesterday’s races was a rare match race in the 7th, an off the grass allowance race for fillies and mares that turned out to have as much drama as watching the tractors harrow the track.
🍯 Race 1 was an off the turf maiden special for 2yo fillies going 5 1/2 furlongs that went with six. Honey Dijon, a FL bred daughter of Girvin, didn’t do much running in her debut on opening day, tuned up for this with a sharp 3f in 35.1 on Saturday and went off a slight second choice at 3-2. She exchanged bumps at the start, chased a solid pace for these, took over straightening out in the lane and drew clear late for Joe Sharp, Tyler Gafflione and owner-breeder’s the Grady bunch. Into Stars, an Into Mischief FTS from Team Cox hit the gate hard at the start yet recovered and ran well to be second. The rest really need grass.
🌉 Race 3 was an off the turf $35,000 NW3 going a mile out of the Wilson Chute. Tallahatchiebridge chased the pace, took over on the far turn and crushed the field for Saffie-Gafflione-Ramsey. More than Work stumbled badly at the start, dropping jockey Kendrick Carmouche, neither of whom was injured.
🎠 The 5th was a MSW for NY breds going 6f on the main track that was won by Chris Clement’s Miss d’Or Cherie for Reeves and Rocco, ridden by Manny Franco. In a field of nine, eight were first timers including the winner who showed speed from the start, moving to the lead on the turn and remaining clear to the wire. NY bred races aren’t feeling like they are advancing the statebred program as they should IMO as the middle class trainers with horses sired, raised and trained in New York that used to be the staple of these races, seem to have been overwhelmed by the supertrainers with horses by mostly Kentucky based sires. The first 4 across the wire here were trained by Clement, Mott, Maker and Brown and were by Bolt d’Oro, Solomini , Audible and Tapit. Other sires were Mitole, Mendelssohn, Hard Spun, Practical Joke and Redesdale. Only two of the nine are real New York breds. Having a handful of NY sired races, at least at the maiden level, would benefit NY based farms and create at least a morsel of incentive to stay home with a decent mare and give the little guy a shot to breed and/or race a Saratoga winner too. Yes it’s true that dividing up the population into more categories can be seen as diluting the current available races but in order to grow the program across the board, not just at the top, it will take innovation and some risk. Adding a handful of NY sired races to the schedule is a gamble that makes sense AND needs to be cultivated over a few year period as changing breeding habits is a slow process. You can crunch numbers all you want but until the non-elite participants FEEL like they have a chance to have success, nothing will change.
✅ Race 6 is perfect proof that innovation can still work in the modern game as the auction restricted MSW races have been a hit since introduced a few years back. They attract full fields including plenty of shippers and usually are competitive races and this one was no different. The winner was Le Dom Bro, a Gulfstream shipper for Antonio Sano, edging Ken McPeek’s Waltsib by a neck.
😴 The great Spa match race was the 7th and it not only wasn’t great, it wasn’t even much of a match. Luis Saez on Alpha Bella, a three year old Justify filly for Pletcher/Don Alberto, sent his filly hard from the gate, establishing a narrow lead on the Brown trained Virtual Reality under Prat, going into the first turn. Continuing down the backstretch setting very legit fractions for the 9 furlong distance (23.99 x 47.92) especially in an ‘off the turfer’, Saez made Virtual Reality work to keep up and when Prat asked the Cloud Computing filly for more heading into the final turn, she was found lacking, unable to keep pace as Alpha Bella widened her lead, finally hitting the wire almost 23 lengths to the good.
😔 RIP longtime Kentucky owner and racing commissioner Frank Jones
🆓 DRF Formulator PP’s for the Hall of Fame (Gr II) Stakes HERE
❗️Who says tracks can’t fix their own mistakes? Read how Churchill Downs is correcting a hasty move they made earlier in the year.
🎂 Yesterday was Mike Smith’s birthday, read here how he says that he ain’t done yet.
(This preview assumes the race will be run on the turf course)
Hall of Fame (Gr II) $500,000 3yo 1 mile inner turf
More than Looks - exits big win over similar company in the Manila (Gr III) around one turn at Belmont back in July. Pace on paper looks like it might be solid enough to give his big late kick something to run at but it’s a NYRA grass race…and we have seen enough potential strong early fraction races turn into processions to be wary. Is cross-entered in the Secretariat (Gr II) at Colonial Downs Saturday which is by no means an easy spot.
Carl Spackler(Ire) - no one benefitted more from the one week postponement of this race than this son of Lope de Vega did, moving inside to post two from being on the far outside in post ten. Figures to get a nice trip behind the speed from the inside and looks to make amends for his no-show in the American Turf on the Derby undercard.
Behind Enemy Lines (GB) - ran well in the Penn Mile before getting run down by Major Dude who is taking the road more traveled by shipping to Colonial rather than run here. Has a pair of very sharp works for this and switches to Rosario, which once upon a short time ago was seen as a positive. Needs help with a lively early pace but may get it.
Ocean Vision (Ire) - probably hurt the most by the postponement as running over a really soft course would have likely benefitted him the most as he has been successfully campaigning in France where bogs are a way of life. Still the conditions won’t be firm and Euros regularly come over and beat domestic grass horses like a drum. Feels like he can beat these but demand a decent price.
Appraise (Ire) - Brownie had decent form last year as a 2yo, retuned in July to narrowly win an entry level allowance going 7f at Belmont. Needs to improve to get a piece of this but we have seen move ups from lightly raced horses from this outfit before, you are likely just taking an underlaid price if you use him.
Mysterious Night (Ire) - looked like the second coming of Rock of Gibraltar last fall when destroying the field in the Summer (Gr I) at Woodbine, including Appraise (Ire). His 2023 season has seen him running like he has a mysterious disease, terrible in both outings for a slumping Appleby barn. No offense to Junior Alvarado who takes the reins but you’d have to think it’s not exactly a show of confidence that Bill Buick isn’t coming.
Mischievous Angel - gelding broke his maiden at first asking back in June at Belmont going 6f on the lawn. Speed figure came back solid but nothing that would get him on the board here. As we said about Appraise (Ire), lightly raced runners from this outfit have often shown improvement when kicked way up in company but you almost never get the price that you should.
General Jim - is he a modern day Lure? That might be a stretch but the Into Mischief colt has shown ability on both dirt and turf surfaces, switching back to grass for this. My question would be is Shug going back to the green stuff because he bombed last out in the Woody Stephens (GrI) on dirt or was this the plan all along? I’d image Saez will leave the gate aggressively and try to secure a forward postion from post 8. Tough call.
Bat Flip - kept good company as a 2yo including beating General Jim in his last out, the Central Park. The problem is that race was in November and post nine does him no favors as Javier Castellano will have to figure something out replacing the suspended Jose Ortiz.
Today’s feature stakes race is named the Hall of Fame stakes and we decided to feature one of our favorites, 2013 inductee Lure (what took so long???). We have two videos, one of Lure besting Fourstardave at the Spa in the Daryl’s Joy (GrIII) and his second tour de force BC Mile win.
Any coincidence with Seth Fishman going to jail and Appleby form off this year? Wasn’t he the chemist for Godolphin?