Early Morning Notes - Oct 12

Checking in tonight from Gainseville, GA, don’t even ask. After tonight’s posts, you won’t be hearing from me again until Thursday night at the earliest.

- Great news from the barn. Highland Cat came out of Sunday’s race in excellent form. Javier Castellano was reportedly “quite impressed” with our colt, and said that he lost the shoe before the race even started. Turner intends to stretch him out going forward, and there’s talk of a turf race on the 26th. Not sure if that’s enough time between races. In any event, I think he should definitely love a stretch out, being out of Highland Tide, a stakes placed daughter of Highland Blade (Damascus), the good handicap horse who won the Marlboro Cup and the Brooklyn Handicap, the latter at a mile and a half. The dam is a half to stakes winners Ide and Super May and the latter won graded stakes on the grass.

- Storm Cat’s stud fee remains at $500,000 and already is essentially sold out. [Daily Racing Form]

- Henny Hughes has been transferred to Kiaran McLaughlin from Patrick Biancone. He’s one horse of Biancone’s that I didn’t have that much of a problem with his handling of, though that could have changed. Darley paid $4 million for this colt when he was the fastest horse in the world, and kept him with Biancone even though he’s not one of their regular guys. Biancone’s explanation was "I guess because he had been beaten." [Thoroughbred Times]

- Besides suggesting First Samurai as a triple crown winner in his Countdown to the Cup column this week, Steve Haskin at Bloodhorse writes of Nick Zito’s Breeders Cup plans, which include Sun King and Sir Shackleton in the Classic, Superfly in the Juvenile, In the Gold in the Distaff, and, surprisingly, High Fly in the Sprint. High Fly has had just that one race since May, his second place finish in the Jerome, and he seems hardly suited to face Lost in the Fog at this point. I mean, he doesn’t have to run in the Breeders Cup, does he?