JC / Railbird - Thoroughbred racing news and notes

I met Marc Subia today and he told me the story of his amazing autograph jacket. "It's my most prized possession." Marc started coming to Del Mar with his dad in the 1970s. It's his home track. And he's been collecting jockey autographs for decades ...

Grand Jete keeping an eye on me as I take a picture of Rushing Fall's #BC17 garland. #thoroughbred #horseracing #delmar

Another #treasurefromthearchive — this UPI collage for Secretariat vs. Sham. #inthearchives #thoroughbred #horseracing

Thanks, Arlington. Let's do this again next year. #Million35

That's a helmet. #BC16 #thoroughbred #horseracing #jockeys

Lady Eli on the muscle. #BC16 @santaanitapark #breederscup #thoroughbred #horseracing

Saturday Race Results

Brother Derek will almost certainly go into the Kentucky Derby gate as the favorite, and for good reason. His win in Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby “was so easy Alex Solis was standing in his stirrups and celebrating well before he crossed the finish line,” 3 1/4 lengths ahead of Point Determined. A.P. Warrior was third. Yet again, Brother Derek demonstrated tactical speed and an ability to finish strong, and he looked magnificent in the post parade as well, arching his neck and pushing his lead pony around. “This horse is a monster,” said Solis of Derek. “Just incredible. He keeps impressing me more and more each race he runs.” The final time for the race was an even 1:48. “Can we add 12 and change to that?,” asked “beaming” trainer Dan Hendricks after.
Brother Derek earned a 108 Beyer speed figure for the race, the same as he scored winning the San Rafael in January, and small bounce back up from the 102 he earned in the Santa Catalina in March.
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Point Determined has certainly shown some improvement this spring. The colt that trainer Bob Baffert had to ship north to Golden Gate to get an allowance win in February finished second to A.P. Warrior in his next start, the San Felipe. On Saturday, the colt easily passed A.P. Warrior in the stretch after falling back as the field entered the far turn and having to make up several lengths. That’s something to keep in mind for the Derby, as is that second place finishers in the Santa Anita Derby — particularly those trained by Baffert — have historically done well at Churchill Downs.
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Baffert has a second Derby contender in Wood Stakes winner Bob and John. The colt handled the sloppy Aqueduct track with aplomb (if not speed — the race’s final time was 1:51.54 with the last furlong run in a slow :14.06), finishing 1 1/4 lengths ahead of Jazil. Keyed Entry was third.
“Just goes to show you that there is so much speed in California, it’s like a vacation when you get away from there,” said Baffert:

“I knew he would run much better here. He needs a bigger track. The last time, he was completely wiped out and never got a chance to run and he needed the race. I wasn’t really hard on him. I was hoping that if we tried something different, it would work and it did. Good horses run on any track.”

Keyed Entry’s third place finish was the second loss in a row for the colt, who was sent off as the favorite at 4-5, odds surely influenced by the way Keyed Entry freaked over a similarly sloppy track at Gulfstream, where he won the Hutcheson in record time and scored a 110 Beyer. Trainer Todd Pletcher said after that he wasn’t sure what would come next for Keyed Entry:

“I thought he dug in and tried hard … Originally, I thought the sloppy track was a blessing. I don’t know if that was the case, considering they went the final eighth in :14. It looked like they were all laboring. It is disconcerting that he didn’t win. I don’t like to make decisions right after a race, so we’re not going to jump to any conclusions just yet. We’ll see how he comes out of it, let the smoke settle and figure it out.”

Jockey Edgar Prado said of Keyed Entry’s effort that, “He tried hard, but a mile and an eighth appears to be too long,” and suggested that if Keyed Entry were to go into the Derby, he probably wouldn’t be the colt’s rider. “One less to worry about. I think Barbaro is the horse so far.”
The one eye-catching performance in yesterday’s Wood was Jazil’s surprising late stretch run into second place. The colt’s flying finish earned him $150,000 in graded stakes money. Although that’s enough to put him at 17 on the Derby graded earnings list, it doesn’t guarantee Jazil a spot in the Derby gate.
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Sweetnorthernsaint followed his third place finish in the Gotham last month with a win in Saturday’s Illinois Derby. “This horse improved leaps and bounds since the last time I rode him,” said jockey Kent Desormeaux. “[Trainer Michael Trombetta] said don’t give up on him. He’s really a great horse and he strutted that stuff today.” Mister Triester, who finished fourth in the Santa Catalina, was second, and morning line favorite Cause to Believe was third. Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer blamed a lack of pace for Cause to Believe’s finish and said the colt’s connections would have to think about starting him in the Kentucky Derby:

“We’ll let things settle out and see if we can make an intelligent decision on what we should do,” Hollendorfer said. “I’m not going to say either way because I didn’t like how the pace came up today. It was a deeper track, too, and the winner was used to that kind of track, but if you go to the Kentucky Derby, you have to overcome obstacles like that. Opportunities don’t come very often to be in America’s race. We’d like to be in it, but if we determine that there are too many things against us, we won’t do it.”

Sweetnorthernsaint earned a 109 winning the Illinois Derby, a career high and his fourth straight triple digit Beyer.
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Also on Saturday:
– Too Much Bling romped in the Bay Shore, winning by nine lengths. “We’re just glad he’s a fast son of a gun,” said Baffert. “We’ll keep him at one-turn races for now.”
– Spun Sugar bested Happy Ticket in the Apple Blossom. “We got outrun in a tough loss,” said trainer Andrew Leggio.
– Longshot Bushfire easily won the Ashland, while favorite Balance, who “wobbled” at the start, finished third.
– In his second career start, the $8 million colt Mr. Sekiguchi won his first race at Santa Anita.
– Jockey Rafael Bejarano won six races at Santa Anita on Saturday. “This is my best day out here, a really good day,” the happy rider said.

Posted by JC in Racing on 04/09/2006 @ 1:15 pm / Tagged Kentucky Derby / Follow @railbird on Twitter

Noted: April 8

– 68-1 longshot Chin High wins Keeneland’s opening day Transylvania Stakes. “We always thought this was a nice colt,” said trainer Neil Pessin after.
– An ankle injury has sidelined French Park. The filly will miss the Kentucky Oaks while she recuperates from surgery to remove a bone chip. Wagering on the Grade II winner in pool three of the Oaks Future has been suspended.
– The Green Monkey arrived at Churchill Downs on Friday. Trainer Todd Pletcher said there’s “no schedule right now” for when the $16 million two-year-old might start training at the track.

Posted by JC in News on 04/08/2006 @ 12:45 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter

Gulfstream Numbers

Official Gulfstream attendance and handle numbers won’t be released until the meet ends on April 23, but track president Scott Savin told the Daily Racing Form both figures are looking good:

“Believe me, we are all very pleased with the way things have transpired so far,” Savin said. “Ontrack business is up substantially over last year, and through Sunday our attendance is up 365,000 compared to the same period [72 days] in 2005.”

Attendance is up 365,000 people? That’s impressive. And implausible. For Gulfstream attendance to be up that much, the track would have to be attracting an average of 5,069 more people a day this year than they were in 2005, which they certainly weren’t doing in January and February, as Bill Finley wrote earlier this year:

There were 42 days of racing at Gulfstream in January and February, 2006 and the daily average ontrack attendance was 5,157. It may even be less. The attendance figures given out by Gulfstream are estimates and, based on per capita handle, they appear to be optimistically high. For the sake of argument, let’s say they are true: they still represent a 44 percent decline in attendance compared to the 2004 meet.

As for March and April, Equibase numbers indicate that average daily attendance for those two months declined 25%, from 5,177 in 2005 to 4,157 in 2006. The one bright spot in that period is this year’s Florida Derby, which drew 11,990 people to the track. While the track wasn’t exactly packed, that number is an increase over last year’s attendance figure of 9,905.
If attendance is down, though, handle is up. Ontrack handle for last year’s Florida Derby was $1.7 million, this year’s exceeded $2.7 million. Average daily handle doesn’t seem to have increased as dramatically, but it’s up as well, and Gulfstream (again, based on the Equibase numbers) seems likely to report increased ontrack handle of approximately 15% for the meet.
So, more money from fewer people. I guess that’s one vision for the future of racing.
4/26/06 Addendum: I wasn’t too far off on the ontrack handle estimate: “Gulfstream Park … reported double-digit gains in average daily on-track handle. Wagering on Gulfstream races rose 18 percent while on-track handle was up 13 percent compared to 2005.”

Posted by JC in Track Notes on 04/08/2006 @ 10:00 am / Follow @railbird on Twitter

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