Sunday Evening Notes
– I’m in Kansas City for the TRA Simulcast Conference, where I’ll be taking part in a Tuesday afternoon panel on IPTV, the web video technology Churchill CEO Robert Evans talked up at the Jockey Club Round Table. Reports from that session and the rest of the conference throughout the next couple of days …
– Rags to Riches is done for the year. The filly came out of Saturday’s Gazelle with a hairline fracture in her right front pastern (DRF). Trainer Todd Pletcher suspects the injury occurred during the stretch run when Rags to Riches switched leads, which would explain her apparent lack of focus in the stretch and her hesitancy when Lear’s Princess took the lead near the 70-yard marker. Not to take away from Lear’s Princess, who was simply better on Saturday and in form (Blood-Horse), having finished second in both the Coaching Club American Oaks and the Alabama, both races skipped by Rags to Riches due to missed training and fevers. As Green But Game writes, “Lear’s Princess was tuned up and Rags to Riches was not.” Hopefully, a healthy Rags to Riches will come back in 2008, as her connections are promising, and get an opportunity to avenge this loss, her first since her debut in June 2006.
– Quinella Queen wonders: “Do the folks at Belmont lose sleep wondering how Miss Macy Sue can outdraw the Belle of Belmont?”
