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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Highland Cat Back Soon

- Highland Cat, having lost his manhood, will be returning to Bill Turner’s barn later this month with a new sense of purpose in his life. At least we hope so. Forget those frisky fillies and get thee to the winner’s circle I say. What the hell else is there for him to do at this point anyway? His days of cruising singles bars are obviously over, so he might as well get with the program.

Meanwhile, our Vicar filly has been named Christening (Vicar – Birthright); so there’s a clever name for you, eh? I love it! But there’s a split in this Castle Village partnership over what to do with her. Our half-partner in the venture is looking to sell their 50% share of the filly, and there are ongoing negotiations with a potential buyer at a price that would just about cover her total cost including expenses thus far. The arrangement being discussed would call for her running in alternating silks between ours’ and those of the new partner – there’s a novel arrangement for you. Personally, I wouldn’t care if her jockey wore Dick Cheney’s pajamas as long as she wins. (Well, how about Joe Biden’s instead?) (OK, after his rambling performance at the Alito hearings yesterday, perhaps we should go for Diane Feinstein’s instead.)

Some of the CVF partners however, in keeping with the original pinhooking business plan, feel that we should also be looking to cash out if we could get a similar price for our share. That would leave us with just Highland Cat, and actually make for a fairly successful venture, albeit not in the way originally envisioned, to sell them quickly at the two-year old sales. Three of the four original purchases would then have been sold at varying degrees of profit, but profit nonetheless; and we’d be able to go some time without a cash call (and perhaps even a distribution) even if Highland Cat doesn’t start to pay his way. The matter has been put to a vote.

While I respect the opinion of those who want to sell, I’ve voted not to do so. As I’ve mentioned before, I absolutely love her breeding, and Vicar endeared himself to me on the basis of his two gritty wins – that you can see on this page - in the Fountain of Youth and Florida Derby; even though he would never win again. Bill Turner likes her a lot, and I’d like to be involved in her future, both racing and hopefully breeding too, as I think there are a lot of interesting mating possibilities for her given some of the combinations present in her pedigree. And besides, you gotta love that name! Thus far, the “don’t sells” have a 13-11 lead, and hopefully, the voting will be legitimate and won’t have to be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.

- A reader recently requested some background on Highland Cat and the pinhooking partnership, which can be found here.

- Feel free to email me with question, comments, links, or suggestions. And thanks for stopping by!

4 Comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVE the name. Very nice.

Alternating silks...hmmm. Now I feel really demanding for stating our partnership horse would run in ours, with no considerations! Ah well. He's the only horse we've got, and it's easier to negotiate with partners you're related to. :)

Anonymous said...

...a good name for that one would be Smart Bet...

...funny story...a couple of years ago on Derby Day, half the people who were betting Smarty Jones were asking for "Smarty Pants"...not sure where the mix-up came from, but i didn't find it TOO off-the-wall...then some guy came up and asked for "Sticky Jones"...lol...if i ever become a porn star, that's the name i'm using...

...also of note...of course we had some sheets printed up, with all the horses names and numbers and morning lines, etc...one of the entrants was the Baffert colt Wimbledon, who was an early scratch...so right after his name, it said "scratched"...well, about 30 seconds to post, some guy comes RUNNING up to the window, slams a twenty down on the counter, and says "twenty dollars on Wimbledon Scratched!"...

Alan Mann said...

Smart Bet seems like a logical choice but I suppose the philly.com contest will require something more creative than that.

And Walter as porn star "Sticky Jones," ha! If the rest of you knew Walter's last name, you'd be laughing as hard as I am.

Anonymous said...

...lost another unit today...Metric System went off @ 7/2, but didn't break that well and was rushed up along the inside to take the lead...didn't appaer to be travelling all that comfortably, and had nothing left when they turned into the lane...i was certainly expecting more...

...as for the piece in today's Form about the San Rafael, and Drysdale's quote that YTOM is being given a break...okay, we kinda already knew that...but he also says the horse won't return until March?...MARCH???...that doesn't seem kosher, even for a guy as notoriously conservative as Drysdale...first off, it's not as if YTOM had a long, taxing 2yo campaign...he's only started three times for crying out loud, and only twice in succession (his debut was way back @ Del Mar)...for this he needs a 2 1/2 month break???...even if he IS healthy (which i'm beginning to doubt), Drysdale is the kind of guy who likes to bring a horse along slowly...a March debut when you're thinking Derby seems a lot more like a rush-job to me...maybe he's going with the 2-preps-then-Derby schedule, which has become so fashionable lately...but i dunno, i've been watching Drysdale for a long time now, and this just doesn't look right...keep in mind, when his mega-prospect Fusaichi Samurai injured himself last year, we heard exactly NOTHING from Drysdale...at least not until the horse had disappeared for over a month, and people began asking questions...then it was announced that he was "off the Derby Trail"...i dunno, maybe i'm just being paranoid, and i certainly hope i'm wrong...but i've got a bad feeling about this...