I'm Not Mad

- A frustrating and fruitless betting day for me. It started out bad when Don’t Get Mad, who I couldn’t have been more wrong about, busted up some Pick 3s, and it went downhill from there. Good racing day though, with six straight Chuchill stakes, including Saint Liam’s dominating return. Rush Bay took the money and the G3 Jefferson Cup. Taken off the Derby trail after a distant 7th to Afleet Alex in the Arkansas Derby, he’s proved his worth on the turf, on which he’s a nose away from two graded stakes wins. That should be no surprise, since he’s by champion grass horse Cozzene, who won the 1985 Breeders Cup Mile at Aqueduct. It brought back some memories of a chilly fall day at the Big A watching the video of that race on this page from Gainesway (with a very young sounding Tom Durkin with the call). Rush Bay is out of a half sister to millionaire and multiple graded turf winner Chorwon, also by Cozzene. Trainer Tom Amoss opined "I really think he's one of the top 3-year-olds on grass in the country." [Bloodhorse]

Don’t Get Mad was just awesome winning the Northern Dancer BC, effortlessly sweeping past the leaders while wide on the turn - seven wide according to the chart, even though there were only 6 in the race, and drawing away in the stretch as they came home in 6.12 seconds, wow. Gary Stevens said that he "made up like four lengths in the matter of two strides." [Bloodhorse] It’s the first graded stakes winner for his sire Stephen Got Even; in fact, he remains the second year sire’s only stakes winner. Let's hope he makes his way north for the Haskell or Travers.

Rich in Spirit took the G3 Regret, and this is a really nice turf filly by the Roberto stallion Repriced, who stands for $5000 at Darby Dan, out of a Woodman mare. Cape Hope, who was so impressive earlier in the year, came up empty for the third race in a row at a very overbet 7-2. It just seems like when a young filly suddenly throws in a couple of bad races, they often don't recover so quickly. I wonder if Dallas Stewart is regretting his decision to run her back on the dirt in the Fantasy; everything was fine with the filly until then.

The G2 Fleur De Lis was a race I couldn’t get a handle on, and I took a pass. But it turned out to be one of the more entertaining races of the day, as Two Trail Sioux grabbed the lead, looked beaten as the field caught up on the turn, but gamely held off multiple challenges in the stretch. Randy Moss, in his usual excellent form on ESPN, immediately spoke about how the filly fought Pat Day every step of the way, making her shaking off of her challenges even more impressive. Then, when interviewed after the race, the jockey basically repeated what Moss said. Here’s another up and coming filly who has climbed her way up the allowance ladder to a graded stakes win; she's now won 5 of her last 6. She’s by Indian Charlie out of a Quiet American mare and the female family of Derby winner Monarchos.

Saint Liam was awesome in winning the G1 Stephen Foster, more on him and on Ashado's win in the Phipps later. I tried to get out for the day with a cold double with Saint Liam and Seeking Answers in the final Churchill stakes, the Opening Verse - it was paying a fat $42. He ran well but checked in third, beaten two necks by the two favorites I was trying to beat. Senor Swinger has now won 5 of 8 on the Churchill turf.

Finally, those who got through the totally ‘haveable’ first three legs of the NTRA Pick 4 and went deep in the wide open finale, the G2 Californian, were rewarded with a fat $454 payoff for a dollar bet when Lava Man won at 8-1. Nice $50,000 claim by Doug O’Neill last summer.

And really finally, a great end of the stakes day in the G3 Affirmed at Hollywood, despite just a four horse field - the four of them lined up across the track around the final turn. Surf Cat was made the even money favorite over Buzzards Bay on the merit of his 114 Beyer in a 6 1/2 furlong allowance sprint. Even though he ran second, he showed why people rely so much on the Beyer guys, validating the number with a game, wide-both-turns effort in his first stakes and two turn race. The lightly raced son of Sir Cat is definitely one to keep an eye on. Buzzards Bay was a disappointing last despite saving ground. The winner, Indian Ocean, is a nice lightly-raced 3 yo to watch himself, taking the stakes win in just his 4th lifetime start. Interesting pedigree; he’s inbred 3x3 to Storm Bird and a full sister, Oceana (and is thus 4x4 to Northern Dancer); and he's 4x5 to Secretariat. He's by Stormy Atlantic, and it's his 6th stakes winner this year.

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