Monthly Archives: August 2014

Selections

Saratoga August 2 – Late Pick-4

This seems like a silly exercise. On  really big race days, the pundits absolutely drown you in race analysis. So I’ve decided to handicap the handicappers.

RACE 8

There is mostly agreement on this race. Three horses get picked on top – 1 Palace , 7 Vyjack and 5 Happy My Way. 8 Bakken also gets a lot of suport. Finally there is one sneaky pick for 2 Falling Sky. Palace looks very strong. He’s 10 for 10 in the money at 6F. Falling Sky really has the look of a horse that should have been sprinting all along. He seemed to be a “need to lead” type but in his last he tracked and finished well for the win. I actually think that at 6F he may run his best race. Happy My Way has shown nothing but speed in his last three starts and has won convincingly. He’ll have much more to contend with up front today. Bakken has only started four times but he has definitely impressed. He finished a close second to Palace last out. He wouldn’t be a shock. Vyjack has one win since his Jan 2013 win in the Jerome and that was for $100K OC. So some really strong thoughts on 1 and 5, some hopeful thoughts on 2, 7, and 8.

RACE 9

Nobody seems really sure here.  3 Sweet Whiskey, 5 Southern Honey, 6 Street Story, 7 Sweet Reason, and 9 Tea Time. Even the 10 Red Velvet and 11 Bird Maker have cropped up. Sweet Reason is the ML favorite, and in my world whenever I think a race is chaos, you can count on the favorite winning. Looks like an all race.

 

Opinions

The Turf at Old Del Mar

After the horse Seriously (previously named Lararus) went down the other day, Del Mar predictably took races off the turf again. Apparently the plan is to be back on the turf next Friday, but to limit the races to higher level ALW and Stakes.

I’m going to make this short. We need to know what is different about the turf course this year that could possibly explain why there seems to be a rash of serious injuries.

I know they expanded the turf course this year in order to compete for the Breeder’s Cup, and perhaps it just hasn’t matured completely. But I don’t know, and if they’ve announced what the issue is, it hasn’t been in a way that makes it clear to the betting public. Of course, in addition to doing some maintenance on the turf course, they moved the rail out. I guess all that didn’t work.

It simply isn’t enough to take the races off the turf. We need a tangible explanation that either puts the blame on the turf course or comes up with a better explanation. When the races go back on the turf, we need an assurance that the turf course is as safe as a turf course can be.

Enough is enough. Del Mar needs to get the problem fixed and they need to be totally transparent with the betting public. There is simply no other course of action.

Opinions

The End for Lavender Road

I blogged the other day about the incident with Lavender Road. If you hadn’t heard she scratched before the 7th race on Wednesday and as she was returning to the paddock she suddenly collapsed. She tried getting up and on her way back down she apparently hit her head on the padded rail. She tried getting up at least 9 more times, and 9 times she flopped right back down. Finally they sedated her and took her to the Rood and Riddle vet clinic.

Initially they though it might be her right foreleg but x-rays were negative. She seemed to be exhibiting symptoms of heat stroke and was treated for that, but when she didn’t respond as expected they did further x-rays. At that point they found a fractured vertebrae that could not be repaired and she was humanely euthanized.

Trainer Abigail Adsit had the horse since she was a weanling, so she is taking the loss very hard.

In my previous blog I gave high praise to Junior Alvarado who sensed  something was wrong with the horse in warmups and alerted the vet who then scratched her. Alvarado indicated that her strides were choppy and she was making strange sounds. I also think the track vets and attendants did their level best to treat the horse on the track.

Heat stroke would have been quite odd given that it was not hot and the horse hadn’t done more than warm up, unless the horse had some sort of inherent problem with heat dissipation. And the speculation was that the cracked vertebrae happened after she smacked her head on the rail.

But the question remains. What caused her to go down in the first place? Did no one see the signs before she got on the track? Was it perhaps a virus with symptoms that mimicked heat stroke? Could it have been the Lasix she was given on race day?

Abigail Adsit is like a lot of trainers. Her charges are like pets, and they are treated as such. But five years ago she was matriculating at Union College. Did her lack of experience as a trainer cause her to miss something? She obviously doesn’t have a big stable – she only had one other starter at Saratoga. It seems unlikely if the horse was stepping badly or was showing symptoms that looked like heat stroke that there wouldn’t have been some sign in the paddock.

The general sense is that we’ll never know what happened to Lavender Road to cause her to collapse on the track. It seems highly unlikely that a foreleg injury was the explanation, and while I’m not Maggie Wolfendale I watched the horse trot off after Alvarado dismounted and the horse did not seem to be seriously injured. People who were watching the horse thought that when she was up long enough she seemed to be favoring her leg, but she was never up for more than a few seconds. It didn’t look that way to me, but I’ll admit I was focused more on the fact that she looked pretty loopy. Ostensibly the x-rays on her foreleg confirmed that it wasn’t a bone injury anyway. The turn of events after she banged her head seem to have led to her ultimate demise, but again we may never know if the vertebrae was a prior problem or completely happened when she banged her head on the rail.

In my history of going to racetracks, Lavender Road was not the most obscene injury I’ve seen. The reason Lavender Road got so much press was that the whole thing took place in full view of the crowd. It’s hard to ignore a horse struggling as she was on the track and not have it have an impact. Most of the time horses are attended behind a screen out of view of the crowd. It was also hard to ignore that the 8th race was held up for close to an hour. Had she made it to the paddock and fallen over we may never have read about her. But in today’s facebook and twitter world, nothing publicly happens that isn’t making it’s way around the planet 30 seconds later.

I think the stewards need to at least do a little investigating and rule out either prior injury or a medication problem. This would certainly be in the best interests of the racing public, but moreover it could fully keep negative speculation about Abigail Adsit from circulating.

Selections

Saratoga August 1 – Late Pick-4

Well Thursday’s first race had gone off when the skies opened up and I mean buckets came down for 20 minutes or so. By the time the storm passed they had knocked all the remaining turf races off the turf. Of course an hour later the sun came out and the day turned glorious. I have a feeling part of the reason the races went off the turf is because they couldn’t afford to chew up the course with Whitney weekend coming up. Anyway, it made the late pick-4 a lot less handicapable and I wasn’t in a position to change my blog selections. I’m not sure i would have had any of the race winners.

I expect the turf races will be back on Friday, and the main track will probably start out as good.

RACE 7

This 5 1/2F sprint on the turf looks very formful.

  • 7 Soul House seems best at the sprint distance. There really isn’t a meaningful class drop – $40000NW2L is not a lot different than statebred NW1X. The down side – he doesn’t look like a horse that digs in in the stretch.
  • 8 Shore Runner is taking a class drop from his last, but seems to finish second or third in starter alw, claiming NW2L and Alw NW1X. He has a great number and if you believe he will show a little more heart is the fastest. But….
  • 10 Lunar Tales is the sort of horse I really gravitate toward in these sort of races. He has a nice 5F race third back, broke his maiden at a mile two back, and lost in his NW1X but was flattered when the winner of that race won a $62K OC. Fast enough and should show good stretch courage. Top pick.
  • 12 Pirate’s Pleasure was just claimed at this level by Michelle Nevin who is 28% 1st off the claim. The down side – he’s had plenty of chances to make it to the winner’s circle for the second time. Love the last 3F work. If you believe Nevin makes the difference, he could steal the race.

RACE 8

This mile and a sixteenth affair is filled with ambiguous horses. 2 Call Wil has some talent, but struggled at the $25K OC level. 3 Smokey Brown has a burgeoning case of seconditis. 5 Permanent Campaign needed 7 races to break his maiden but only finished a half length behind Smokey Brown in his last. 7 Jigsaw just broke his maiden for a $40K tag and takes a jump up in his first with winners. 9 Old Upstart fits the class, has plenty of speed, but hasn’t been on the turf. All these horses could be contenders.

  • 6 Aripeka has four starts with three in the money finishes. He’s been off since December but his 3YO figures are competitive with this group. If Maggie W gives him a nod I’d see him as the top choice.
  • 11 Arch Avenger is another 1st off the claim for Michelle Nevin. Obviously he was well thought of at one time. He was a $425K yearling purchase and was given to Todd Pletcher who raced him four times and then pretty much gave up when he entered him in a MC $20K. He won that race by 10 lengths, came back at a $40K NW2 and just missed. He’ll have to overcome the outside post, but he has enough speed to get a good position. I think he’s worth a long look.

RACE 9

This is another dart board race.  I’m going to look for a horse that has some consistency in restricted stakes

  • 3 Free as a Bird seems to have bloomed in her 2014 starts, not finishing worse than second. She’s also listed at 5-2, and I think would be slightly underlayed at that price. She has a nice second on the SAR turf at a mile. Top choice.
  • 5 Munnings Sister is the fastest horse in the race and has consistently tried Grade 2 and 3 races, although with only mild success. If you read my blog on turf racing, you’d know that I think turf breeding is irrelevant at short distances if a horse shows good speed on the dirt.  At 5-1 she’s worth a good look.
  • 6 Jewel of the Cat is another one who is a restricted stakes specialist in turf sprints. She has a win at SAR at today’s distance. She should be in the mix.
  • 10 Madame Guy is a fast turf sprinter and just won an open 5F stakes. She looks like more the sustained run type and from the outside post might have some issues getting a good spot turning for home. Probably most likely to hit one of the back holes.

RACE 10

I’ll be consistent. Horses like 3 All Cash are mostly sucker bets. No matter how fast they look, they just don’t seem to want to pass all the horses. In his last three races he hasn’t gone off above 7-2. He eats money.

  • 4 Morse is listed at 20-1 and has as good a chance as any horse. He was just claimed by anonymous (at SAR) trainer David Cannizzo who is 2 for 3 at Saratoga. He’s shown good speed at this level and only lost to Dividend (6-1) by half a length. Why not? I’ll make him the top choice.
  • 7 Dividend fits the class, was just claimed by John Terranova and Irad Ortiz stays aboard. He’s certainly eligible to improve enough to win the race.
  • 8 Deimos dropped into a MC and seemed to wake up. His figures make him competitive.
  • 9 All My Tails is dropping into a maiden claimer for the first time. Johnny V stays for low profile but competent trainer Michael Dilger. You simply have to use horses that are first time MC, especially with only three starts. I think this looks more like the trainer is being realistic as opposed to desperate.
  • 11 C’S Smart Strike puts blinkers on . His last race was slow at the  beginning but sped up nicely. In a race with a few contenders, he’s one of the horses that figures to have a chance. The outside post doesn’t help, but perhaps the blinkers will encourage him to get a good striking position early.