Square Eddie
Good News Sunday
Doug O’Neill reports Square Eddie is looking good after his first race in a year:
“He came out fantastic, legs ice cold, jogging sound at the shed row and ate up everything,” Santa Anita’s three-time training king said.
Nice to hear! The Donn could be next for ‘Eddie.
This is Todd Pletcher gushing about early Derby fave Uncle Mo:
“Yes, I think he will get better,” Pletcher said. “And it’s kind of scary to think about that.”
The famously cool trainer just can’t contain himself, can he?
Jerry Bossert’s a fan of the Belmont Café:
It’s amazing, but in a month the NYRA put together a better OTB than NYCOTB, which opened its first parlor in 1971.
Almost makes me wish I still lived in New York so I could check the place out.
Saturday Notes
Oaklawn Park opens today. Trainer Larry Jones, refreshed by semi-retirement and recovered from aluminum poisoning, is back. So is Lady Giacamo, one of the first winners for her sire Giacomo and one of the first additions to my juvenile watchlist last year. After going 3-for-3 at Lone Star early in the summer, the filly was brought to Del Mar, where she didn’t race, and returned to the work tab at Remington in November. The six-furlong Dixie Belle Stakes will be her first start since winning the TTA Sales Futurity last June.
Square Eddie, returned to training after a year at stud, set a track record of 1:13.11 for 6 1/2 furlongs winning at Santa Anita on Friday. It’s just the latest record set over the new dirt track, prompting Brad Free to wonder, “when horses run as fast as they have been running this winter at Santa Anita, one has to ask again — at what expense?” I very much hope not at the expense of aggravating the physical issues that sent Square Eddie to the shed. “He had a high suspensory strain and I’ll be very interested to see how he looks in the morning — if he’s knocked out or body-sore,” said trainer Doug O’Neill after. “Hopefully we’ll find an empty feed tub and a bright, happy horse.”
The chipmunks are attacking! How could they not, when provoked like this? According to Santa Anita executive Scott Daruty, handle on Santa Anita was up 5% on the first official day of the horseplayers’ boycott, not down more than 15%. Numbers from the CHRIMS database — numbers not publicly available or reported by Equibase, DRF, or the California stewards, and therefore unverifiable — say so. I’m not a member of HANA, and even though I’ve bet less than $20 on Santa Anita since the meet started, I’m not boycotting. (Short fields dominated by speedballs and favorites bore me.) I’m an observer, and my interests lie in having access to accurate numbers and trying to understand what those numbers mean. If the track handle numbers reported on charts and treated as standard by every trade publication (including the one Daruty is speaking through) are inaccurate, then we have a bigger problem than trying to determine whether Thursday’s Santa Anita handle was up or down — the quality of handle data, as well as all reportage based on it, is compromised.
Champions’ Day
Big changes to the 2011 British racing fixture list, not least a new event:
At long last, racing has officially announced the arrival of British Champions’ Day, with £3 million in prize money making it the richest fixture in British racing history. It will be staged at Ascot on 15 Oct 2011, with a six-race card that officials hope can be built into an extravaganza to rival the Breeders’ Cup and Arc day.
France Galop, which wants three weeks between the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and Champions’ day, isn’t happy. BHA is going ahead regardless.
In a move that will seem familiar to even the most casual observer of the Breeders’ Cup, a British Champions’ Series, with five championship categories, will lead to Champions’ Day. It’s a bit of a “red herring,” notes the Telegraph. Not at all, said an executive involved. “They [the races] are signposts for newcomers to racing.” It’s about marketing and branding, of course.
Which reminds me, Bill Oppenheim wrote an interesting, straightforward account of how the recent Breeders’ Cup developments came to pass for the September 23 Thoroughbred Daily News. Emphasis is on the effects to the breeding industry, with glimpses into how the BC “narrative” is being crafted.
The strange career of Square Eddie continues. Retired early this year to stand stud at Vessels Stallion Station in California, the 4-year-old colt has been returned to training. “After he was done breeding, we checked his legs and they were cold and tight,” trainer Doug O’Neill told the Blood-Horse. “We have got him back on the track for Chapter 2.” It might be more accurate to call this episode Chapter 3, since Square Eddie was already returned to racing once after suffering setbacks during the 2009 Triple Crown season. The juvenile graded stakes winner was unplaced in his four post-injury starts as a 3-year-old, prompting the end of his running days. Asked Foolish Pleasure on Twitter, “Why is it always Doug O’Neill? Doesn’t that just say it all?”
Alan Shuback cuts through the surface debate: “[I]nstead of forever arguing over whether we should be racing of dirt or synthetics, we should be building racetracks with long straights and milder turns.” It’s an argument for a more European style of racing, but then, what do we have to lose? Not more horses.
Theyskens’ Theory and undefeated White Moonstone, two very exciting Euro babies out of a bumper crop this year, are set to meet in the Meon Valley Stud Fillies’ Mile Stakes at Ascot on Saturday. Both debuted in July, both will be making their fourth career starts. Also running at Ascot on Saturday is Frankel, who will face five in the Royal Lodge Stakes. The well-regarded Henry Cecil trainee will be making his third start since debuting in August.
“The one thing that we’re doing a little bit differently this year is skipping the last possible prep for some of the horses and going into it with a little more time,” trainer Todd Pletcher informs readers of the At the Races UK blog dedicated to the barn’s Breeders’ Cup contenders. “Of course, with our two-year-olds, most of them will need another start.” So, wow baby Uncle Mo will get his second career start and final Breeders’ Cup prep in the Champagne at Belmont, Curlinello will make his second start in a Monmouth stakes, and Stay Thirsty, who has run three times, may or may not train up to Churchill.
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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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