Money Well Spent

- Turf champion Kitten’s Joy tuned up for his 2005 debut in Monday's G2 Firecracker BC Handicap at Churchill with a between-races 5 furlongs workout on the turf in :59 1/5. "That's pretty fast," said [trainer Dale] Romans. "I told him (Orantes) to let him run down the lane a little bit, and he 'smooched' to him and he just exploded down the lane.' [Bloodhorse]

- Commentator is headed for Saratoga after his spectacular victory at Belmont Wednesday. Commentator is 6 for 6 in races at a mile or less, with his six wins by a combined 58 3/4 lengths.

Zito said that Commentator would likely make his next start at Saratoga. Zito's main goal for Commentator is likely the Grade 1 Forego on Sept. 3. The Grade 2, $200,000 Vanderbilt at six furlongs on Aug. 13 is the prep for the Forego. [Daily Racing Form]

Commentator is by Distorted Humor, out of a Storm Bird mare, and is from the female family of multiple G1 winner and $3 million earner Behrens.

- Man, there’s a lot of stakes action this weekend. I’m going to have to try and sort this all out. There are five graded stakes at Hollywood on Sunday, three of them grade 1’s, and Andujar is expected to top one of those, the Vanity Handicap at 9 furlongs for f&m, 3 and up. She certainly won’t be 7-1 as she was when she stepped up to graded stakes company and romped in the Milady BC Handicap. Andujar is a half-sister to the dam of Going Wild, and in support of her harried half-niece nephew, jeez! - she’ll be wearing one of those ‘W’ stickers with a line drawn through it that you saw during the presidential election campaign to protest the methods of trainer Wayne Lukas.

- Don’t you love studies that produce these incredible revelations that you never would have imagined could be true? Here’s one, via Albany Law School.

A casino within 10 miles of home has a significant effect on problem gambling and is associated with a 90 percent increase in the odds of being a pathological or problem gambler, said John W. Welte, Ph.D., principal investigator on the study.

The likely reason for the increase, he added, is that the availability of an attractive gambling opportunity can lead to gambling pathology in some people who otherwise would not develop it.
……
Funding for the study was provided by a $1.2 million grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
[Science Daily]

Well, there’s money well-spent for you!