(Home)

It’s only appropriate that Z13 get his own appreciation post. I am just bursting at the seams since I first witnessed the second son’s adorableness yesterday morning.

• Dad is Tapit. I freakin love Tapit and baby Tapits. They collect G1s like Pokemon cards.
• Mom is Zenyatta, one of my undisputed all-time favorite mares. Much of my horse racing love is because of her.
• The ears. The Vertigineux ears!
• I really wanted to see a gray/roan baby, even though chestnut has always been my favorite pony color. It’s like the racing gods knew this and made the baby chestnutish just for me (there aren’t any chestnut relatives in Z13’s pedigree until you reach his great-grandparents: Gana Facil on Zenyatta’s side and Secretariat on Tapit’s side. DAAAAH! Also I say chestnutish because from the nose it looks like Z13 could be getting some early gray hairs once he sheds out…
• The blaze! It’s like the racing gods knew I heart blazes. Reminds me a bit of Tapizar’s blaze too, and I loved him a lot.
• He’s a porker. 145 lbs of baby.
• He’s a second-born like ME! THE VERY BEST ARE BORN SECOND!
• Tuesday was a crapshoot for me. Z13 saved the day!

Now all I have to hope for is that in 2 years, he won’t be given a stupid name.

Glad to know I got to see Agave Kiss race before she was retired. I really liked watching her races online, a filly with a lot of power. She’s booked to Tapit for her first foal.

ALSO GLAD: moody sprinter Hamazing Destiny.

Sounds like I might get to see the beautiful Cerro [IRE] in the Belmont Stakes this year!

Someone needs to be at the track all the time to photograph all these horses. I hate watching a big stakes and having no idea how pretty some of these underdog losers and victors are until afterward. Why are only famous ponies photographed? :/ Anyway, Black Onyx is pretty.

Orb won’t have many excuses to lose the Florida Derby with Merit Man setting the pace.

Getting people to love and watch horse racing is like getting people to love and actually read books. “TRY IT YOU’LL LOVE IT!… No you ought to try it this way… it gets better after the first hundred pages!”

Pure poetry in race calling: “Brutal power wrapped in an elegant machine!” Perfect for Black Caviar.

Something that drove me crazy this week: “handicappers” dismissing certain horses on the Derby trail because they took 4 or 5 times to break their maiden. Hello? Ever heard of late bloomers? Oxbow needed time to get good. I don’t recall who said it specifically.

The 2013 running of the Bourbonette Oaks will live in infamy preceded by “Fathead.” No.

I used Twilight Eclipse and Excaper in the Kent Stakes (III) last year, so naturally I was miffed when he decided to win in world record time yesterday.

Count on me to not want one of my most beloved Derby contenders from last year, Sky Kingdom, to win over Calidioscopio [ARG] yesterday. His Marathon win was one of the most exciting (and profitable) for me personally.

A full sibling to Zo Impressive is in the works! Zoftig is back in foal to Hard Spun for 2014! I miss “Zo.”

Tweet o’ the Week:

Conformation buffs, unite! Normandy Invasion was a big “downhill” yearling.

Sure Todd Pletcher has an excellent shot at winning the Derby this year. He always seems to have the best two and three-year-olds leading up to the first Saturday in May, and Verrazano looks to be the best horse in his barn. The hunk of muscle by More Than Ready is following the same path as past Pletchers Super Saver and Bluegrass Cat running in—and winning— the Tampa Bay Derby (II) in style.

But, where there is a favorite there is often a price. Past readers of my blathering know that while I acknowledge Verrazano’s brilliance, I do not like him as a Derby horse. I do however like Normandy Invasion a great deal.

Naysayers (neighsayers?) and doubters have showed up already to shake their heads at Normandy’s three-year-old debut in the wonky Risen Star (II), which was won by Ive Struck a Nerve at 135-1. The race was very weird, with many top horses suffering bad trips or off performances, and the winner certainly took advantage of a fast pace to lock up the win.

Examining the race again, Normandy stumbled out of the gate and was off to an awkward start. The first turn, like many of this year’s preps, was crowded and hectic, forcing him 5-wide to an even greater disadvantage. He was 6 or 7 paths wide by the time he hit his stride in the stretch, and by then it was too late. A snap shot of his loss margin:

Really, it wasn’t a bad loss, but a bad trip. Racing wisdom also dictates that the gallop out is pivotal, especially for horses who look to stretch out in the future. Let’s look at the Risen Star gallop out:

Looks like he was rolling pretty well late! Both Normandy and the #10 horse Oxbow ran better than the winner in the gallop-out, and Oxbow ran a winning race next out in the Rebel. I consider Code West and Oxbow to be pretty good horses at minimum, so with this and a few other things, I think Chad Brown can bring home a great contender at Aqueduct in the coming weeks. Watch the full Risen Star race

Key points:

• Sire Tapit won the Wood Memorial.
• Off a long layoff, Normandy Invasion lost the Risen Star, which was won with a BRIS speed figure of 99. His close Remsen runner-up was a 104, and his maiden win before that was a 92. He could very well power off that loss.
• The Risen Star is beginning to look even wonkier and dismissable after Oxbow’s head loss in the Rebel Stakes (II) this past weekend. Oxbow was the pacesetter for the Risen Star and went wide like many others did into the first turn. Both Normandy and Oxbow broke from disadvantaged outer posts.
• Jockey switch from Jose Lezcano to Javier Castellano, a very wise move indeed.

We all can’t wait for this snow shit to melt here in Massachusetts.

Howdy everypony! I’m here to break the Sunday lull with several updates!:

• A big thanks to Derby Handicappers for making the first two rounds of the contest super interesting and entertaining! Round 3 will be this coming Saturday with the Risen Star (II) at Fair Grounds! I will try to have the submit form go live Wednesday and the analysis up by Thursday afternoon so you all have ample time to get your picks in. I will have the 2nd prize image up by Saturday on the Contest tab.
• Pony documentary update: Still slowly being setup, but I will announce the super cool fundraising method in a few weeks. I’m sketching out equipment needs right now, but projected costs are a modest, doable $1500-$2000. For the web series, I am trying to decide on the format I think will work best, but hope to shoot this week.
• Other upcoming posts: Memories of Winter Memories, a post about Tapit’s Derby contenders (waiting on how Mudflats runs today), You Comment I Respond, and the next alternative handicapping method suggested by a follower: my folks have a bunch of leftover fortune cookies!
• Life update: I might slow up a bit some days on updating the blog due to some changes. I am giving up my rented room in Fitchburg and moving back home so I can take up another (better) part-time job here. I will have to commute a LOT while working 40+ hours a week and going to school full-time. It’s all a necessary evil.

High hoof!

Dawna

Free pickup line ahead of Valentine’s Day: YOU AND I SHOULD GET TOGETHER TRUENICKS RATES US AN A+++ MATCH. (If that doesn’t work, they aren’t worth your while)

A couple new things I want to try in handicapping races this coming week/weekend: spend an afternoon watching a couple races and pick ponies just based on their looks/conformation in the paddock, NO ANALYZING/RESEARCH! Then, do another race where I pick the top 3 finishers out of a bag and try to argue how the race could finish that way. It’s unusual yes, but I’m feeling a bit dusty lately.

I am already plotting my ultimate summer trip to Saratoga. If things go my way, I will make it longer than one overnight stay, sleep in a haunted place somewhere (I’ve always wanted to do that, come and get me ghosties!), and visit Vinery New York because I want to touch and feed food to Bluegrass Cat.

Dominus is retired now too? :’( ANYTHING ELSE TO GO WITH YOUR FEAST OF FAILURES, MR. TODDSTER? Please for the love of pony, send Violence and Revolutionary to someone else!

Steve Haskin will regret ignoring me and my blathering that he should at least be mentioning Purple Egg in his Kentucky Derby posts!

Interesting statistic about the Derby points system’s messed-upness: the Gotham (III) is on the points schedule, but has only had one Derby winner in its history with Secretariat. The Illinois Derby (III) has also had one with War Emblem, but while it is older, it is much more significant because until 2000 the race was run between the Kentucky Derby and Preakness instead of being a Triple Crown prep. HMM…

It hurts a little bit to see a G1 winner like Sean Avery go up for a price in a Gulfstream claiming race. Where’s the gratitude?

Fly Down is still racing at six! My little Dubai hero.

If there’s a third annual Derby Handicap, I’m considering dropping the R.B. Lewis if I think California is shaping up the same way next year. Absolute crap compared to the east coast’s stars.

Filly early Triple Crown nominees: Dreaming of Julia, Beholder, Flashy Gray, J K’s Mischief, Princess of Sylmar, Spring Venture, and Unlimited Budget.

Jackson Bend isn’t well enough after his pre-Forego (I) injury to be a stallion this year but he was okay enough to race one more time after that? Sketch city.

Washington icon and eight-year-old ridgeling Atta Boy Roy calls it a career with a respectful place in the Swift Stakes at Turf Paradise. I posted about him once upon a time and how his trainer hauls him around in a one-horse trailer with the window hatch open so he can stick his head out, like a dog enjoying the breeze.

Best of luck to the gamest in the land today: Game On Dude defending his title in the San Antonio (II)!

A wave of emotion and nostalgia hits me as Tapit babies and Believe You Can scored big yesterday. :’D I wish Sabercat fared a bit better though.

Life At Ten and Always A Princess both had Medaglia d’Orofoals as their first. I haven’t seen a picture of the latter’s, but Life At Ten’s son is so dang handsome.

Tweet o’ the Week:

Everyone who reads this blog on a constant basis will have likely noticed that I often like what Chad Brown has to offer. The young New York trainer has the touch with his growing stable of top-class horses and has a way of keeping them in fighting trim: Awesome Feather, Dayatthespa, Balance the Books, Watsdachances [IRE], and many more were winners this year. I’m also a not-so-private fan of Fox Hill Farms, who were at the helm of the careers of Havre de Grace and Eight Belles. I’d love to see Brown make it to the Derby in May, and one of his early nice prospects has to be Remsen (II) runner-up Normandy Invasion, who wears the red and white colors of Fox Hill.

While I think the Remsen this year wasn’t all that remarkable, it is still a nice long 9-furlong race I always make a point to watch. Last year’s race resulted in future Risen Star (II) winner El Padrino and the 2010 edition yielded To Honor and Serve and Mucho Macho Man. I don’t like the looks of Overanalyze the winner, but I will like to discuss Normandy Invasion a bit.

The bay colt sired by Tapit debuted against a strong field at Belmont back in September in a MSW I recall watching as Mico Margarita conquered the Pletcher horse Nevada, also sired by Tapit. He went wide and weakened, beaten some 6 lengths by experienced colts. He gained some points and moved on to Aqueduct next where he broke his maiden with an extra 2 furlongs, beating up the field to win by 9 1/4 lengths. In the Remsen he looked the part of a winner losing a nose to the stakes-experienced and G2 winner Overanalyze, who managed to beat him by a narrow bob of the head, the two and pacesetter Delhomme (third by 3/4 lengths) separating themselves from the field by over 16 lengths. Sandwiched by Dixie Union-sired Pletcher colts, it doesn’t look like Normandy Invasion is going to bend.

Analyzing the Remsen itself, Overanalyze sat in 2nd off a soft pace sitting just off of Delhomme. Normandy Invasion sat far back in last— according to the official charts he gave up some 9 lengths to leader Delhomme by the first point-of-call. Logically, this gave Overanalyze not much of an excuse to be beaten by Normandy Invasion, who had to overcome the difficult task of making up ground after the leaders got such an easy pace and was making a long, hard drive that began early on the far turn.

Brown and Fox Hill Farm are no stranger to precocious individuals, and this colt is nothing but that. Tapit is famed for siring early speed and damsire Boston Harbor was the winner of the 1996 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (I). Questions linger as to whether this colt can keep piling on the distance and keep that ability strong as he ages. There’s also been questions as to whether or not this race was given a misleading Beyer speed figure of a super impressive 99— keep in mind that Union Rags never did better than a 95 as a two-year-old and both Overanalyze and Normandy Invasion experienced huge point jumps all of a sudden. Really?

Can Brown keep the streak alive, or is he fated to replicate fellow New York powerhorse trainer Pletcher in training just good two-year-olds? Can he train a youngster well on the dirt and lead him to the Derby gates? Can Normandy Invasion offer Fox Hill another chance at the world’s biggest race? I don’t usually like a whole lot of two-year-olds for the Derby at this point, but I think we just saw another promising horse come out of the Remsen again this year.