The King Ain't Dead

- Overlooked, and understandably so, in the talk about the aluminum pads worn in the Mile by Leroidesanimaux and the fact that it wasn’t announced until well after the pools were open for advanced wagering, was the fact that the beaten favorite was absolutely Kingly in defeat. With John Velasquez unable to get him to relax in the early stages, he was four wide coming out of the chute and around the bend into the backstretch. Then he was three wide on the final turn before surging to the lead. This was accomplished with those aluminum pads that are supposed to be particularly detrimental on a soft course. Yet when the always tough Artie Schiller found a seam and ranged up beside him in deep stretch, Leroidesanimaux showed the heart of a champion and resisted the initial charge, fighting back before succumbing in the final yards.

Despite the repeated announcements, at Belmont anyway, of the aluminum pads, the King was bet down to 6-5 as post time approached. I’m sure that there were those who either didn’t hear the announcement, or heard it and didn’t know what it meant. Given the sound system at Belmont, some people there might have thought that he was wearing Fruit of the Loom pants. According to Mike Watchmaker (after his well-deserved tirade about Lost in the Fog – when you’re right, you’re right):

It is a New York racing rule that if a horse is to race with aluminum pads, a surefire indication of a compromising physical problem, it must be noted at time of entry, which in this case was Wednesday. This even appears from time to time on the NYRA overnight. [Daily Racing Form, sub. only]

Frankel, for his part, seems to have been totally forthcoming with the public about the horse’s condition throughout the week. When the King worked out last Monday in the aluminum bar shoes, he told the Form that the horse would be re-shod Saturday morning in regular racing plates.

The bar shoes....were applied Sunday because Leroidesanimaux had "sloughed his frogs," Frankel said.....

"This happens to horses all the time," Frankel said. "I'm not taking any chances. You don't want it to get irritated and raw." [Daily Racing Form]

As planned, the shoes were taken off Saturday, but the news they revealed was bad. "We took the shoes off and he was still sore......He couldn't even walk on them, so I had to put the aluminum plates back on. Once those were back on, he was okay." [DRF] It was up to the stewards to do the right thing for those who had already invested their money, and they clearly dropped the ball. This seems like sounder grounds for a class-acton lawsuit for aggrieved bettors than the lame one filed this past winter regarding Sweet Catomine.

- Artie Schiller is a son of El Prado (Sadler’s Wells), who stands at Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs for $100,000. El Prado, who is also the sire of Borrego, has 58 stakes winners amongst his ten crops to race thus far, which is 9% of his foals (10% is considered to be the elite level). Artie Schiller is out of Hidden Light, a multiple grade 1 stakes winning daughter of Majestic Light. Majestic Light, by the Derby/Preakness winner Majestic Prince, was a grade 1 winner on both the dirt and turf – he won both the Haskell and the Man O’War in 1976. That’s another thing you don’t see much of these days – major stakes winners winning on both surfaces in the same year like that.

Majestic Light brings Ribot into Artie Schiller’s pedigree, which also has Sir Ivor close up, so it’s little wonder that this four year-old loves the grass as much as he does.