Stealth Horses and Judges

- I’ve added some more content to the Breeders’ Cup section in the sidebar. The “Preps” link for the individual races is a worthwhile feature from the Racing Form, listing all the prep winners with their Beyers, with links to each race chart (pdf files).

Stanley Hough’s two year old filly Sensation was the only Breeders’ Cup contestant that worked out today, and the trainer said only that "She got something out of it," [Bloodhorse] which may mean that he thought it sucked, since you generally hear nothing but unbridled joy from these trainers after these pre-big race workouts. You may recall that she was heavily bet in the Spinaway, and finished 4th as the overlaid Adieu won for Pletcher, who said of the probable Fillies second choice, "Adieu has won every race except one at Saratoga when they were expecting some rain and sealed the track with a back rake." [NYRA]

Afleet Alex was also on the track, and Tim Ritchey said that he would likely have his next workout in about a week.

- NYRA has now backed off of Charles Hayward’s comments about closing Aqueduct, saying he was “speaking hypothetically.” VP Bill Nader added, "There's no plan in place to do that. Someone would have to do a huge study, and we haven't done any of that." [NY Post] Well, they certainly don’t have the money to do a huge study, or even a tiny one, that’s for damn sure.

What is not hypothetical is NYRA's financial woes. Nader said NYRA is holding up payments to some vendors; he did not have an amount. Also, NYRA is late with a $17.3 million property tax payment to Nassau County and New York City and is also tardy paying $13 million to its pension fund.
……
NYRA also still owes money to Neil Getnick, a Manhattan lawyer who served as a court-appointed oversight monitor at NYRA for 18 months; Getnick, whose duties recently ended with a glowing report of NYRA that help end the federal prosecution against NYRA, has said he would be charging NYRA up to $5 million for his services. Nader said a "considerable amount'' of Getnick's bill is still owed. "He understands our position and his firm is willing to wait and be placed pretty deep on the list,'' Nader said. [Bloodhorse]

Five million, wow, perhaps NYRA should get into the oversight monitoring business themselves.

- Paul Moran of Newsday feels that with the new arrangement of the order of the Breeders' Cup races, the two apparently most manageable races have been removed from the pick six. He’s referring to the Juvenile and the Juvenile Fillies, contending that those races are fairly clearcut with First Samurai and Folklore/Adieu respectively. Hmmm, don't know if I agree with that - I'm checking out Sorcerer's Stone and Wild Fit, though it’s still early, obviously (ten minutes to post time is usually early for me). But he certainly has a point about the remaining races that will be part of the pick six being wide open (besides the Sprint in my opinion), especially the three turf races, featuring those foreign horses whose PP lines contain about as much information as Harriet Miers has apparently given to the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to their questionnaires.