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Saturday, July 02, 2005

Saturday Morning Notes (pre-beach) July 2

- A disappointing twilight card crowd of 4500 at Belmont yesterday, a bad sign for a big weekend of racing there. A lot of people are out of town, and others, like me, are being forced to go to the beach today now with teenage kids; I’m not happy, needless to say, and haven’t yet decided what to do about the horses I like today. My goal is to escape to Belmont either tomorrow or Monday. Yet another winner for Billy Mott, again on the turf; he’s hitting at 33%. Hmmm, perhaps I should reconsider picking against Wend today. Yesterday he saddled Steel Buns and had to sweat out a tough drive with 29-1 shot Polish Nana. This is quite a well-bred 3 yo filly, being by A.P, Indy out of an unraced daughter of grass champion Dahlia. Two more winners for Prado, though one was on a .25 to 1 shot.

- Yet another prominent name drops out of competition for the year, as Rockport Harbor. Incredibly, the colt is still being bothered by the abscess on his foot that goes back to the injury suffered in the Remsen last year.

"The cutting out of the abscess and the wiring done in order to patch the foot have not enabled the healing process to proceed enough for him to be comfortable," Porter wrote on Rockport Harbor's Web site.

"Therefore, John and I have decided to remove the wires and the patch and turn him out for two to three months. This will allow the hoof to completely grow out. New Bolton professionals have advised us that 'Rocky,' if given this time without any training, will be back 100%. We will then plan a racing career for him as a 4-year-old." [Bloodhorse]
We hear that a lot, about one of these coming back as a 4 yo, most recently with Giacomo, and we’ll see how many of them fulfill that pledge. No word on the fate of Rocky’s website.

- Well, if nothing else, at the beach I’ll get to check out tomorrow’s stakes from Hollywood and elsewhere, so if I survive the day, and if I don’t completely humiliate myself with the picks for today, I’ll try and get to a couple of those tonight.

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