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After a Derby week and recovery time/finals time hiatus, Racing Beat is back to clog up your sluggish Sunday feed!

How cool would it be if Pletcher entered Dreaming of Julia in the Belmont? He commented she wouldn’t be ready for a Preakness run after the Oaks soooo maybe another Rags to Riches attempt? YES PLEASE. (Two-weeks-later-edit: Seems my dreams of Julia is going to happen! Aw yeah!)

Poor Hollywood Park. If I do indeed get that full-time spot in the coming weeks like I hope, I may think about going out there just so I can soak in one of Zenyatta’s old stomping grounds before they tear it down. *Sigh* Who’s good at finding good cheap flights?

Oh Godolphin, getting desperate are we? Still, that was the quickest sentencing I’ve seen… why can’t we do that in the States?

One of the nice things about the Doug O’Neill camp is how much they believe in their horses and are all too willing to send in a possible bomber. But Handsome Mike to Royal Ascot? Against Shea Shea? *shrugs*

If I can save enough money, I have big Saratoga plans this year that involve me staying overnight here. *squee*

A full sister to 2007 Kentucky Derby winner/handsome stud Street Sense has been foaled at Darley America. Unf.

I feel like registering for a 5K mud race after the Kentucky Derby so I can pretend to be Orb mwahahaha if only those poseur races weren’t flipping expensive I might be more serious discussing this.

My mind has been off how Power Broker is moving forward and concentrating more on when Rolling Fog is coming back. Add Power Broker to the Belmont possibles list as well after his recent comeback win.

Some find the Ramsey family to be obnoxious or annoying, but let’s reward them for the fact that they claimed back their gelding Pleasant Prince recently, a recognizable older horse that has made appearances in the Breeders’ Cup Marathon as well as the Classic in the past.

Sweet baby Atigun won his race, but sweet baby Java’s War was dusted. So much sad THIS IS JULIEN’S FAULT YES THAT’S IT.

Add Freedom Child to your watch list for the Belmont Stakes as well as Tenango, who isn’t an “official” possible yet but one can assume things…

Rest in peace to Nehro, my beloved 2011 Kentucky Derby horse I really wanted to see in person, and to Chilled, the “savage” horse who was DQ’d to second in this famous 2012 photo.

Tweet o’ the Week: I love her already (by Istan)

No question about it… if Wise Dan can beat Animal Kingdom and the rest of a challenging field in the BC Turf Mile, he gets Horse of the Year if Game On Dude loses the BC Classic. Nobody tops those two this year in breadth of challengers and list of impressive wins.

Feeling a future post here… I look forward more to the Juvenile Turf than the Juvenile dirt race. No lie.

I hope there’s a rich Disney fan of a racehorse owner that will name a future Street Sense/Cry/Life/Boss baby Street Rat. Mwahahaaaaa.

And Calder continues being the dick of the track world charging fees for things that don’t need fees…

I have defeated the curse that is Blazing Silks, thank you Paige. Aww but look at my pone pone I named Greek Fire!

I vow to make a superior pony game if I ever finish my computer science degree.

Word on the street is the new freshman sire to watch is The Green Monkey. Yes, that overpriced bomb of a horse, yes that one. Spring At Last is making progress as well.

Looks like Drill is starting to make his way back with 3-furlong breezes at Hollywood Park after a tiring spring campaign sprinting. Ultimate Eagle has started breezing last week, too. ~A la horses I just randomly started thinking about and looked up

Feeling legit depressed about Danedream and the rest of the Arc dropouts. At least now I know it’s not just the U.S. where horses like to drop like flies at terrible moments.

I had a dream the other night that I was watching the Breeders’ Cup Turf and out of nowhere comes NEHRO to win it. Yeah, even in the dream I was like what the…

Chantal Sutherland is constantly testing my will… she’s cool one moment throwing out the first pitch for the L.A. Dodgers game… unthinkably vile the next having her baseball signed by that god-awful, why-does-he-have-a-show Rob Drydek. *hurls*

If I were the owner of Stay Thirsty, I’d keep him running if at all possible until maybe age 6. He’d likely improve with age, plus I’d throw him into the Marathon, not the Classic. Hopefully in his last year the Breeders’ Cup will go to Belmont and then he could go out with a bang on his favorite track. But since this is not the case, I’m stuck brainstorming name-play foal monikers… I like Slurpee.

I am so proud of Pool Play right now…

Shanghai Bobby is a cute colt and all, but I’m still not feeling him. I’m eagerly awaiting the Remsen Stakes at 1 1/8 miles… maybe we’ll see a real Derby horse then.

Tweet o’ the Week hails back to medieval times…

He may not have won the Derby or the Preakness (and some of you would say that he never would have and was soundly beaten by I’ll Have Another), but Bodemeister would have been the horse to beat in the Haskell Invitational (I), had he not been stricken with illness. Belmont winner Union Rags, a likely candidate to close into Bode’s fantastic fractions, is also out due to a suspensory injury.

Who does that leave in what will be a rather unexciting Haskell?

Hansen, who has a lot of work to do in redeeming himself as a top three-year-old fallen from grace, is now 60-70% likely to enter the Haskell, with priority originally given to the lighter West Virginia Derby (II). Trainer Mike Maker has commented that the colt has matured quite a bit from his rank prep days leading up to the Derby, where he finished an unimpressive 10th. He is certainly ready for a big race following his public workout in the Iowa Derby (III), which he won by an easy 10 lengths.

Zayat Stables is also listing Bodemeister’s talented stablemate as a possible for the race. Paynter nearly wired the Belmont Stakes (I) and has been an impeccable horse from the get-go. Dare I say, he is more mentally capable than Hansen, and can probably beat the Great White Hope should he elect to sit off the pace.

Throwing in a third option and a name I have brought up many times before as someone I like: Street Life. I can’t help but think Street Sense is a good enough sire to get a G1 with one of his progeny this year, and Street Life might just be up to the task. Starting from the rail in the Belmont, he got off to a bad start and was too far behind the field to do better than a modest fourth. He nearly snuffed out Mark Valeski in the Peter Pan (II) before that, and had he not been on the far outside, I think he would have won that race. Obviously, things have to go right for him, but the pace has the possibility of working in his favor.

There’s little to dissuade me from siding with Bodemeister as the potential winner and very possible best three-year-old of 2012. For how lightly raced he is, he has sure done a lot to impress us and often times, good three-year-olds can become great three-year-olds come summertime. We saw it happen with Stay Thirsty as well as Coil just to name two non-classic winners who won prestigious summer stakes races. Now that Bode will be skipping the Haskell, it’s just a question of how and when he’ll get that one prep before the Travers.

Prominent sire Dynaformer has been pensioned this past week due to declining fertility (>30 or so bookings this season) and age, now that he is 27. The decision was made after a “cardiac event…” wonder if it had anything to do with “the act” itself! Anyway, it’ll be sad to see no new baby Dynaformers romping in the grass and classic distances… average winning distance was 8.87 furlongs for his tots which include Barbaro, Brilliant Speed, Film Maker, Perfect Drift, Blue Bunting, and Americain! My favorite part is how Three Chimney’s owner Robert Clay admitted that while the horse was mean AND ugly, he was still awesome. Trolololol

Epic fail: Kentucky almost passed out a gradual, three-year-long process of banning race day medications until it got tied up in a 7-7 vote, with one guy voting against passing it being the chairman of the Breeders’ Cup. How does this make sense? I’m all for at least trying to make it without drugs…

Inactivity, lack of reminder emails, and stagnant horses ruined my chances of improving my fantasy stable for the annual WinStar competition, where I finished 1921st compared to last year’s 800-and-somethingth. Ever So Lucky and others bombed while My Miss Aurelia, Fed Biz, Out of Bounds, and Algorithms were sidelined. Ugh. I did support a lot of the other top money winners though, so I can’t be too dissatisfied!

I love Kathmanblu; between her and St. John’s River, she was the apple of my eye in last year’s Oaks. I was ecstatic to see her come back after a long layoff to finish 2nd in Friday’s Doubledogdare Stakes (III) at Keeneland. Clearly, I was on a Kathmanblu binge when I started putting in my two cents at BloodHorse:

I fancied applying for the position of morning line-maker at Calder when it surfaced a couple months ago (pity I moved!), but I do not envy the poor soul who has to do that job for the Kentucky Derby this year.

Spinaway winner R Heat Lightning, runner-up in the ‘10 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Filles to the one and only AWESOME FEATHER (I know, I’m too big of a fan), has been bred to Medaglia d’Oro. Could be good.

My newest summertime goal is to go to Suffolk Downs and photograph all the dapper claimers, then, post them here like the rockstars they are. A more far fetched goal is the Holy Grail of epic racehorse photos: take a picture of a runner with all four feet off the ground, stretched out!

Now that Princess Arabella is unfortunately retired, it’s time to play pick-a-date… she’s got heavy Mr. Prospector inbreeding, and factoring in the early injury/speed she sports, I think she’d benefit from a sturdy cross. Street Sense or Medaglia d’Oro are my pickings.

Now that Santa Anita’s just about done with their meet, it’s time for some Hollywood Park! Yippee! Sorry but it was just too darn hard for me most days to profit off their card… Hollywood Park I know I’m much better with.

Optimizer is still trying to get into the Derby field. I don’t know how to feel… wish Reveron hadn’t been injured!

Is Paynter on your Preakness shortlist?

Happy Earth Day everyone! I sleep most of the day so I’m kind of being energy conservative! I’m keeping my laptop screen on dim lighting right now! Hahaha! But seriously, appreciate your vistas, I know I couldn’t live without my mountains. Santa Anita and Del Mar are two tracks that embrace that natural beauty, not to mention all the bluegrass country in Kentucky.

Isn’t He Clever transfers from Dominguez’s barn to Asmussen’s… because you know, it was obviously a trainer issue. [Alright, I know Dominguez usually just sticks to his locales while the gelding would have more opportunity with Asmussen, but yeah… I prefer a small trainer]