JC / Railbird

Track Notes Archive

Cushion Track Praise

Southern California trainers are praising Santa Anita’s decision to install Cushion Track in time for the Oak Tree meet:

“It will add some consistency that the two Los Angeles tracks have the same surface,” trainer John Sadler said. “Guys can train where they want to train. I think it’s a positive step.” … “I think most people are happy with the decision,” said Ed Halpern, executive director of the California Thoroughbred Trainers. “It’s better for the handicappers. Hopefully, with the surface, we’ll see an increase in the horse population over time.” (DRF)

It will be nice to have a somewhat consistent surface in SoCal, especially one that seems to play as fair as Hollywood’s Cushion Track, which hasn’t attracted the same sort of hand-wringing as Keeneland’s Polytrack surface.

Here’s what I like about synthetic surfaces, in addition to their apparent increased safety: Polytrack and Cushion Track let the true pace of a race play out. Horses with early speed, capable of outrunning rivals in every quarter, continue to win, just as they do on dirt tracks. But horses with early speed and no late kick or additional gears aren’t buoyed along in the stretch as they can be on a speed favoring dirt track (see: Pimlico, 5/19). The stalkers and closers can run their races. As a friend emailed the other day, “the advent of artificial tracks is going to make pace handicapping more relevant than ever.” It also makes class a significant factor again. After more than 25 years of speed dominance, that makes for some welcome changes in the handicapping game.

Posted in Track Notes on May 25, 2007

Weekend Notes

– A speedy Songster dazzled in his first start off a nine month layoff, wiring the Bold Ruler Handicap at Belmont in 1:08.8 (DRF) and earning a new Beyer high of 109 for the effort.
– Also at Belmont: Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin’s hot streak continued with second-time starter Daheer in the fourth, who paid $27.00 to win and was one of two longshots that jockey Alan Garcia brought home on Saturday. The other was career maiden Gold Pageantry, out of Howard Tesher’s barn, in the second, who finally found a field he couldn’t lose against and paid $35.60 to win. Daheer’s a full brother to Grade 1 winner Spun Sugar, who was retired early this year (NTRA). McLaughlin’s won with three of his last four starters and is now sitting on top of Belmont’s trainer standings with a 6-for-10 record since the meet’s opening.
– In the Hilltop Stakes, “Street Sounds essentially got paid for a one-mile workout at Pimlico on Saturday” (DRF). The Street Cry filly, coming off a dominating win at 9-1 in the Grade 2 Beaumont at Keeneland last month, was sent to post as the 1-5 favorite and earned a 94 Beyer.
– Slew’s Tizzy could be headed to the Belmont, following a 1 3/4 lengths win over a sloppy track in the Lone Star Derby (Blood-Horse).
– At Hollywood, Sunday: Longshot Ashley’s Kitty came from off the pace and three wide to win the Railbird Stakes, beating favorite Silver Swallow to the wire by a nose. The race was apprentice Joe Talamo’s third win of the day and his first graded stakes score. Sindy With an S, coming off an allowance win and getting her first big class test, dueled with Storm Queen for the early lead as the two set fast, fast fractions of :21.61 and :43.98 for the first half. Sindy With an S finished third; Storm Queen faded badly to sixth.

Posted in Track Notes on May 13, 2007

Aqueduct, Saturday

All that’s great and terrible about racing was fully on display Saturday. The great, of course, was Horse of the Year Invasor overcoming a troubled trip to win the Donn Handicap by two lengths. The terrible was the ugly accident in Aqueduct’s fifth that left two horses dead and one jockey injured.

Every breakdown is shocking, but Cadillac Cruiser’s was especially disturbing. A 5-year-old gelding with a record of 15-6-3-0, Cadillac Cruiser was running for $7500 three weeks after finishing fifth as the favorite in a $25,000 starter handicap. He’d won at the same level two weeks before and won a $35,000 claimer five weeks before that. On Saturday, though, he was running for a fifth of his value. The connections were offering what looked like a competitive horse at a rock-bottom price, and the reason for that was suggested by the front bandages Cadillac Cruiser showed up in the paddock wearing for the first time in all his starts in trainer Rene Araya’s barn: The gelding was sore or getting there, and owner and trainer wanted to unload him fast.

That Cadillac Cruiser would break his right front leg and fall in front of the pack going around the clubhouse turn and that another horse, Jimmy O, would fall over him, dying instantly of a broken neck, was hardly the guaranteed outcome of his starting on Saturday, but it also wasn’t an entirely unpredictable risk. If any good can come of Saturday’s sad spectacle, let it be that track officials and vets ask more questions when horses drop so precipitously in class and that such horses are given more pre-race scrutiny.

Posted in Track Notes on February 4, 2007