Bank Audit

- Bank Audit (Wild Rush) took the Distaff Breeders Cup Handicap, a grade 3 race that sounds a lot more definitive than it really is. You may have noticed that I picked this horse Saturday morning. But I missed the race. I was out with my kids and simply screwed up; I thought that getting home at 4:30 would be early enough, now that post time has been moved to 1 PM and spring is (kinda) in the air. But the race went off at 4:22; I was thinking as if it was a ten race card. I was mainly planning to bet him as the first part of a parlay with my other selection, Wild Desert in the Lane’s End in what would have turned out to be a particularly agonizing loss. I probably would have used Cativa for the most part in the exacta but may have had a saver on the $37 payoff with second choice Sensibly Chic.

But I still wanted to bet Wild Desert. I loved him at 6-1, and wanted to bet some exactas too, so I called the automated number at my NYC OTB phone account. I didn’t know the number to input for Turfway, so I’m listening to the computer voice slowly run down the tracks, and it’s like “7....Gulfstream Park....... 21...Buffalo Raceway.........37...Turf Paradise.....49....Fair Grounds...” and on and on and then finally “Please make your selection.” What? No Turfway? I listened to the selections again to see if I was mistaken, but no. OTB must not take Turfway for some reason. I was helpless. There was no chance of me opening a TVG account in the two minutes left until post time. That's right...I don't have an online betting account, just this one for the phone. So the race went off, and now I’m hoping he doesn’t win; and he’s sitting there comfortably in last on what seemed to be one of those drying muddy tracks that favors closers, and I just knew he was gonna be coming. Sure enough he makes his move, looks like a winner midstretch, and I’m like’oh crap.’ But there was Flower Alley holding him off, and even Wild Desert’s jockey Robbie Alvarado said that he was surprised that he got beat. So in the end, I quite possibly ended up saving money over all by not getting that bet on the Lane's End in, though that doesn’t make up for my stupidity in not noting the post time of the first race (not to mention not having an online betting account at this point).

- Bank Audit’s sire Wild Rush (Wild Again) stands in Japan for 5.01 million yen. He’s out of a minor stakes winning mare by a major French stakes winner, Faraway Son, who descends from a French sire line that traces back to the influential French sire Tourbillon. So Bank Audit is one that has nary a trace of Northern Dancer nor Mr. Prospector blood, though he is from the closely related Icecapade branch of the same sire line as N.D. This was his first graded stakes win, and he’s a half length away from having won three stakes in a row. He had been trained by Gregory Martin, but Frank Labocetta took over when Martin was indicted for his role in the milkshaking incident in the CAMS affair.

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