Jaycito
Friday Notes
It’s mid-February, the weekend of Sam and Bob, the weekend Derby preps get serious. Forgive the plug, but if you’re looking for analysis of Kentucky Derby and Oaks preps this spring, consider signing up for the weekly Hello Race Fans! Derby Prep Alert, which this week covers the Sam F. Davis at Tampa, the Robert B. Lewis at Santa Anita, and El Camino Real at Golden Gate. Subscribers last week were tipped off to Zazu’s upset potential in the Las Virgenes.
I’ve been a little preoccupied this week (to readers who are not Suffolk Downs fans, my thanks for sticking around through what’s been a series of minutiae-filled posts about a track on the ropes), and haven’t done much more than glance at the entries for the preps — enough to notice that Jaycito isn’t in the Lewis, a race in which Tapizar seems a solid favorite — and to skim Jeremy Plonk’s exhaustive Countdown to the Crown column, which mentions a few allowance races that bear watching for Derby prospects. [Jaycito will start in the San Vicente on February 20. “He’s ready to go,” said trainer Bob Baffert.]
Suffolk certainly isn’t the only racetrack struggling, and that it’s my local track isn’t all that makes the dispute with the New England horsemen over the 2011 meet purses, days, and simulcasting split so fascinating to me — it’s also that what’s happening here is of a piece with what’s happening in California, where annual handle is down and horseplayers are revolting. It’s all part of the Great American Racing Contraction, a reapportionment of power and money that isn’t going to leave a track, horseman, or horseplayer untouched.
Saturday Notes
The Factor is back in training after missing three days due to a foot bruise. “He had a little setback,” said trainer Bob Baffert, noting that the San Vicente Stakes on February 20 is still a possibility for the 3-year-old colt. But the Kentucky Derby may not be, reports Brad Free. After setting a main track record at six furlongs winning a maiden special on opening day at Santa Anita, The Factor didn’t work again for three weeks. “I will not fry him to make the Derby,” said the trainer. Baffert has other Derby prospects, including one he thinks quite well of, tweeted Sid Fernando:
Bob Baffert’s best Derby hope he just told me is Jay. “He’s by Victory Gallop, who beat me w Real Quiet. The mother Fu*ker owes me,” he said
Jay = Jaycito, the Norfolk Stakes winner moved into Baffert’s barn from trainer Mike Mitchell’s shedrow by owner Ahmed Zayat last fall (with the Derby in mind). Since the start of the year, he’s worked four times, most recently going seven furlongs in 1:25.20 at Santa Anita, and could start in the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn on February 21. Despite blowing the turn into the backstretch during last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (in which he finished seventh, 16 lengths off Uncle Mo), the Victory Gallop colt is one of my early Derby favorites, largely on the strength of his for-the-distance pedigree.
In case anyone was wondering about BC Juvenile fourth-place finisher Biondetti as a Derby prospect, the Downey Profile reports that they contacted Godolphin and confirmed that the Bernardini 3-year-old will not be prepping for the first Saturday in May. “He will return to Europe for a summer campaign” (scroll down to the news for Thursday, February 3).
There aren’t enough 3-year-olds to fill races at the Fair Grounds. The Louisiana route to the Derby, which Jason Shandler argues has become less relevant in recent years, is a lot less crowded without trainer Steve Asmussen.
A third claim of copyright violation kills the Partymanners YouTube channel, an incredible source of race replays. Jim Conti, aka Partymanners, said on PaceAdvantage that the video files were mostly backed up and will be uploaded to a second account. Which is … good? When the account was suspended last year, users rallied to save the videos, headed by Thorobase developer Robin Howlett. That’s one reason Conti will be able to restore the channel, but I hope he’ll reconsider where. For all the benefits of the service, posting the replays on YouTube again raises the possibility that new copyright claims will result in another takedown, depriving fans of a valuable resource.
Randy Cohen is out as the New York Times magazine Ethicist columnist, Ariel Kaminer is in, and the only reason I mention the moves is because there’s an unexpected Railbird connection to both. Way back in 2004, when I was a new handicapper, I wrote to Cohen asking about the ethics of betting on horses that may have been mistreated (he thought it best not); last year, I visited NYC OTB parlors with Kaminer as she researched a City Critic column.
Jaycito to Win
As good as Uncle Mo appears to be, I was more impressed by the finishing punch shown by Jaycito, who won his maiden winning the 1 1/16-mile Norfolk Stakes around two turns at Hollywood Park on Oct. 2. In that race, Jaycito caught and passed J P’s Gusto, a fast, three-time stakes winner. The image I had reviewing that race was of Jaycito doing the same to Uncle Mo on Breeders’ Cup Day.
Me too.
(Via @JaycitoHOY2011, the latest in faux racehorse tweeting.)
It may be futile, but I’m trying to resist the lure of history, in which Uncle Mo potentially figures on the basis of his stellar performance (and final time) in the Champagne Stakes. “Since the 1940 adjustment of the Champagne to one mile,” writes Nick Kling, “only five other colts have run under 1:35. They were Count Fleet (1942), Vitriolic (1967), Spectacular Bid (1978), Easy Goer (1988), and Sea Hero (1992).” That’s in addition to Champagne record-setter Devil’s Bag and second-fastest Seattle Slew. It’s good company. “The scary thing,” trainer Todd Pletcher told Tim Wilkin, “is that I think he is still learning.”
In the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, jockey Calvin Borel picks up the mount on Tell a Kelly. “He’s the man at Churchill Downs,” said trainer John Sadler.
Thursday Notes
Wait, Forever Together might not be done yet. Trainer Jonathan Sheppard, who said after the champion finished sixth in the Flower Bowl, “It’s no fun watching her run like that,” and suggested the 6-year-old mare would be retired, told Alicia Wincze Forever Together might get another race. “If we get firm ground [for the Breeders’ Cup] we might go on. We haven’t ruled anything out.”
Jaycito should have the stamina for the Kentucky Derby, and that’s the race trainer Mike Mitchell has his eye on. “The ultimate race we want to run in is the Derby,” he said after Jaycito broke his maiden in his third start, last Saturday’s Norfolk. In his two previous efforts, the juvenile finished second to JP’s Gusto in the Del Mar Futurity and second to Indian Winter, third in the Futurity, in a maiden special. Like Stay Thirsty, entered but unlikely for the Champagne unless stablemate Uncle Mo scratches, he’s a colt on the upswing. [Re: that last link, it goes to trainer Todd Pletcher’s ATR blog, on which he also mentions that Frizette starter Tap for Luck, “is probably the one that’s bred the best to get more distance. Unfortunately, she’s only had one race and it was five furlongs so we’re stretching out more than you would like.”]
With the Southern California horse population down, Santa Anita will try a less-is-more schedule this winter. The track plans four-day weeks, with racing Thursday through Sunday. The change, said track president George Haines, “should make the quality better on the weekends.” Fuller fields are something to look forward to; a shame about the takeout increase.
Kerry Thomas talks equine psychology. “Herd dynamics have an impact on a horse’s ability to maintain pace over a distance. Where they fit in a herd is where they’re naturally inclined to move in any group.” Fascinating stuff.
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Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
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