Saratoga Season wrap up

Real Writing on Racing 💯

Sep 14, 2022

The empty stands after the last race of the meet

🎪 The final race is now in the books, the traveling circus has moved its tents south to the strange September location of Ozone Park, the horse vans pouring out the gate last week, have finally slowed to a trickle. The 2022 Saratoga meet is history, a racing roller coaster spread out over seven, often steamy summer weeks, ending on damp, soggy mess of a Labor day. Its impossible to remember every notable race, performance, surprise, big score or tough beat but we will do our best to recap the mostly enjoyable summer that we chronicled here at the Going in Circles Digest’s daily Saratoga blog. I’m sure that we will forget a race or horse or ride somewhere along the line but Barry and I are going to vote in various made-up but official Spa 2022 GIC Awards, let us know your selections in the comment sections!

Saratoga 2022 Going in Circles Awards

🏆Most Impressive 2 year old - Damon’s Mound (Barry - Damon’s Mound): Trainer Michelle Lovell made her first Spa start count when Damon’s Mound blew past the previously unbeaten Gulfport to easily win the Saratoga Special (Gr II). Honorable Mention - Forte

🏆Most Impressive 2 year old filly - Prank (Barry - Leave No Trace): We went back to early August to Prank’s debut where she lit up what seemed to be a strong maiden special weight group by close to 10 lengths. The half-sister to Belmont winner Mo Donegal unfortunately will miss the rest of 2022 with an injury. Honorable Mention - Leave No Trace

🏅Breakout Trainer of the meet - Phil Bauer (Barry - David Donk): Phil Bauer who is based in Kentucky, actually did pretty well last year when he won 3 of 21 starts with 5 seconds and 2 thirds, good for $325k. In 2022 he bettered those numbers, despite making more than half as many starts, going 6 for 13 with earnings of $341k, at one point winning 5 in a row. Bauer is winning 12% of his non-Saratoga starts this year but went 46% during the 7 weeks in Saratoga! Honorable Mention - Michelle Lovell

🏅Breakout Jockey of the meet - Flavian Prat (Barry - Jose Lezcano): It’s difficult to call a jockey who won 27% and $23 million last year a “breakout” jockey but we really don’t have many options as it was virtually the same colony. Honorable Mention- Jose Gomez

⁉️Biggest Surprise - The resurgence of D.Wayne Lukas (Barry - Prat finishing 2nd in jockey standings): A quip about a Hot Tub Time Machine touching down at the Spa became a running joke as Wayne Lukas kept winning like it really was 1985 all over again. Lukas, who had been absent from the Spa for a few years, returned with a vengeance, running second in the opening day feature, Schuylerville with Summer Promise, second in the CCA Oaks with stable star Secret Oath, before Backyard Money beat a MSW group and broke through, getting him rolling. Naughty Gal won the Adirondack (Gr III), Bourbon Bash won a MSW, Western Ghent won a maiden $75k claimer and then on closing weekend, Forever Dreaming won a $32k claimer, Take Charge Briana won a MSW and Backyard Money win a 50k starter allowance race. His final numbers were 31-7-6-2 good for close to $775k in purses and he finished the meet with more wins than Mark Casse, Shug McGaughey, Joe Sharp and Saffie Joesph among others. Honorable Mention - Wilson Chute - basically it was a non-issue after much initial handwringing

👏🏼Favorable Trend - Weather/few ‘off the turf races’ (Barry - Weather): 18 races were taken off the turf, most later in the meet as the weather, while often oppressively hot, also didn’t include much ‘day of the races’ rain. Honorable Mention - Paddock Bar area - a nice addition to the paddock food/drink area.

👎🏼Unfavorable Trend - Small field in graded stakes (Barry - same): Continuing a trend that has plagued NYRA tracks worse than some of the other circuits east of the Mississippi, a number of graded stakes were run with less than optimal number of entrants. Just off the top of my head, the CCA Oaks, Saratoga Oaks, Bowling Green, Personal Ensign, Honorable Miss, Shuvee, Ballston Spa, Saratoga Special and Fourstardave all had 5 or less runners. Honorable Mention - Fewer out of town shippers - Kentucky trainers are making fewer starts and the mid-Atlantic region isn’t producing many runners these days.

🏇🏻Best Training Performance (individual runner) - Bill Mott w/Cody’s Wish (Barry - Mott/Cody’s Wish): A tough category with many deserving kudos but the Hall of Famer had Cody’s Wish primed off the cutback in distance to run the race of his career, coming from a long way back running down Jackie’s Warrior in the Forego (Gr I). Honorable Mention - Dennis Lalman w/Mosienko - a one horse barn wins twice at the meet in NYB NW2x/opt claiming company with a second for good measure!

🚫Worst Ride - Joel Rosario on War Like Goddess in the Flower Bowl (Barry -Rosario on WLG in Flower Bowl): Joel Rosario had record breaking meet, winning more graded stakes than any other jockey in a single season but he botched this one. Riding passively in a race with zero pace was mistake number one, burying her on the inside like she was 15-1 not 1-5, gave him no room to maneuver and because of that he never got clear till it was far too late. Honorable Mention - Dylan Davis on Montatham (8/10 race 7) He got a 7 day suspension for this ride, cutting off a horse going nowhere, forcing that one to clip heels and ultimately fall. He could have waited just a split-second later to ensure clearance and would still won and not got DQ’ed.

🧡Best Story - Vallelujah - (Barry - *begrudgingly Vallelujah): A group of locals that met watching races from outside the fence on East Avenue during the pandemic decides to pool their limited resources together to purchase a horse. They give the modestly bred filly to former top jockey, now trainer with tiny barn, Robbie Davis. He names on one of his kids, (most of whom are jockeys including Dylan), Jacky, who has been chiefly riding at Finger Lakes. They enter in a New York Bred allowance race on a Saturday afternoon, the post time for the race just 30 minutes after the electric performance of emerging two year old star Damon’s Mound. In Vallelujah’s previous two races, both the same allowance race condition, she had run 10th. In the paddock prior to the race, Dad told daughter that based on his vast experience as a jockey and horseman that she should stay away from the rail, that the outside is the place to be. Jacky sagely ignores her fathers advice, guides Vallelujah directly to the rail, and remains inside as she moves up on the leaders on the turn in the 7 furlong race. When the pacesetting Toscanova Beauty, herself and her connections also Finger Lakes regulars, drifts out turning for home, Davis darts Vallelujah up inside of her, finally wearing the early leader down and drawing clear to a couple length victory as the rank 25-1 outsider in the field of seven. The stunning turn of events sets off a raucous celebration as the little guys weren’t left outside the gate, looking in anymore, they were in the winners circle looking out at the huge Saturday afternoon crowd. *(Barry gave the nod to Vallelujah despite the fact that her win cost him a large wagering score as she was the only horse that he didn’t have covered in pick 4 and 5’s and his hedge win bet that he cashed on her wasn’t nearly an adequate consolation) Honorable Mention - Down Royal winning Grade I AP Smithwick for breeders, part owners, jockey, trainer and van driver, Bernie and Kate Dalton.

🚔Craziest Day in recent Saratoga history - Thursday August 18 (Barry 8/18/2022): It isn’t often that any meet has two stunning news stories break on the same day but the shock of seeing the leading trainer in handcuffs while being arraigned in local court even overshadowed the announcement of arrests of two members of the backside community, both employed as grooms, for narcotics trafficking. Two huge stories on any day, at any track, made that much bigger by being under the Spa microscope.

🥇Trainer of the Meet - Steve Asmussen - He didn’t have a large number of starters at the meet by his standard but was 49-13-9-6 (27%) for $2,558,096, an average of a whopping $52,206 per start (Brown $31,385 & Pletcher $32,885 for comparison’s sake). His graded stakes record was 14-6-4-0 with wins in Grade I’s Travers and Vanderbilt, Grade II Shuvee, Jim Dandy, Amsterdam and Prioress with second place finishes in the Saratoga Special, HA Jerkens, Forego and Hopeful. He also won the ungraded Evan Shipman stakes and was placed in the West Point and Skidmore. Of his other seven wins, five were two year old maiden special weights including the ultra-promising pair of Echo Again and Disarm. Honorable Mention- Brown and Pletcher did their usual good work, Wesley Ward had an excellent meet, especially with filly sprinters. The aforementioned Lukas and Bauer, plus Phil Serpe, Al Stall, Jose Camejo and Cherie Devaux all had stellar meets.

🥇Jockey of the Meet - Irad Ortiz - His name invokes a reaction, whether it be eye rolls, anger or love, yet he easily ran away with the winners and purse earnings titles. Perhaps his most impressive stat is the 55% in the money number despite also having the most mounts as well. He had a signature ‘Irad-style’ win in the Whitney where most post-race commentary focused on his riding tactics as opposed to the brilliant performance put forth by his mount Life Is Good. However in the end he just overwhelms with numbers, riding every mount, regardless of class level, as though it’s his last one. Irad gets a lot of grief and deservedly so, however his competitiveness is of the highest level. That trait, the will to win, was traditionally something to be lauded, is now something that many who are now making the rules seem have forgotten. Honorable Mention - Rosario broke all-time single season graded stakes record, JJ Castellano had a nice bounce-back meet, Johnny V won number 1000 at Saratoga, Jose Lezcano was his usual quietly efficient self and William Buick only rode twice but put on a pair of clinics.

⭐️GIC Horse of the Meet - Epicenter - He isn’t a real original or clever selection but his two performances were very good as were his main competition for the fake award, Nest’s races. We could have easily chosen the filly as she was dominant in the CCA Oaks (Gr I) and the Alabama (Gr I) and she did win two grade 1’s. However we sided with Epicenter as he beat more representative groups in his two wins, in the Jim Dandy (Gr II) he beat the Preakness, Bluegrass, Ohio Derby and Lexington winners and in the Travers (Gr I) added the winners of the Kentucky Derby, Haskell, Arkansas Derby and Iowa Derby to his conquest tally. Honorable Mention - Nest

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