Here’s something for New England racing fans to look forward to (although, I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much): Suffolk Downs COO Robert O’Malley said the track is trying to revive the Grade II Massachusetts Handicap for this year’s meet. ”We’re hoping we can do it,” said O’Malley. “We still have a few things to do, but right now we’re looking at Sept. 30 for the MassCap.” Suffolk Downs opens for live racing this Saturday. The weather forecast isn’t encouraging (clouds, light rain), but I’ll be there for every race of the afternoon (and the Kentucky Derby, of course) …
Posted by JC in Suffolk Downs on 05/01/2006 @ 4:00 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter
Funny Cide snapped an eight-race losing streak with a win on Sunday in the Kings Point Stakes at Aqueduct. “It has been a long time,” said Sackatoga managing partner Jack Knowlton. “We’re just happy to get him back into the winner’s circle.” The Kings Point was restricted to NY-breds; Sunday was the first time since his two-year-old season that Funny Cide raced in restricted company. After taking an early lead, Funny Cide faded in the stretch, but then showed his old fighting spirit, gamely coming back to put away Gold and Roses, who finished second.
Before Sunday, the last race Funny Cide won was the 2004 Jockey Club Gold Cup, in which he appeared to stop as the field entered the final turn and then fought his way to the lead in the stretch. It was a thrilling victory, but one that was unfortunately followed by a string of performances so lackluster that many said the gelding should be retired. If nothing else, Funny Cide’s Kings Point win proves he’s still competitive. That he continues to race is good for the sport, and not just because Funny Cide can still draw a crowd. As Steven Crist writes in a recent column:
Funny Cide is providing a welcome and needed reality check about how horse racing really works once the network cameras and the Triple Crown crowds are gone. Not every horse who wins the Derby and Preakness is an immortal, and not every 3-year-old gets better with age. How many other horses prematurely celebrated as superstars would have provided the same lessons had they been allowed to race instead of being hustled off to stud? …
Funny Cide was never Secretariat or Seattle Slew, and he’s not going to be Forego or Kelso either. Nor is he Gato del Sol or Giacomo, horses one could unkindly argue were one-hit wonders who won terrible Derbies by default. But there’s nothing wrong with being more like Best Pal in his later years, a popular and talented gelding who can dominate fellow statebreds and perhaps, on his best days and when he’s in the mood, be competitive in some graded stakes and even win a big one from memory.
Posted by JC in Horses on 04/30/2006 @ 6:00 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter
Lowell Sun racing correspondent Paul Daley considers the possibility of disaster caused by the outsize Kentucky Derby field in this week’s Sun column, reprinted with permission here.
By 7 p.m. on Saturday May 6, 2006, the 132nd running of the Kentucky Derby will have been completed. As usual, it is my fervent hope that all participants, human and equine, return to the unsaddling area in one piece.
My annual apprehension stems from the fact that, for the 54th time, more than 14 horses will bound out of the two Churchill Downs’ starting gates towards the first turn, all vying for the position of winning America’s most famous race, not to mention a piece of the $2 million purse.
The siren’s song of a place in the record books can be a very seductive melody indeed, tempting as many as 20 young men to possibly react from their hearts rather than their heads in jockeying for the same coveted ground-saving positions entering the backstretch.
[Read more →]
Posted by JC in Racing on 04/30/2006 @ 5:55 pm / Tagged Kentucky Derby / Follow @railbird on Twitter
