Good Tactical Acquisition

- The stock of Highland Cat has plummeted lower than online gaming stocks in London, but his sire Tactical Cat is having a good week. His stud fee went down this year from $10,000 live foal, to $5,000 stands and nurses.

But the stallion fared quite well at the Fasig-Tipton sale this week. He had three yearlings entered, and they all sold, and quite well. A colt sold for $100,000, and he had two fillies sell for $40,000 and $125,000.

Then today at Belmont, a two-year old daughter of Tactical Cat made a stunning debut which makes one want to question the accuracy of the timer. Acquired Cat sold for $85,000 herself at Ocala earlier this year, after working her two furlongs in 21.3. She made her debut here going six furlongs on the turf for trainer Frank Alexander. Listed at 9-2 in the morning line, she was pounded to 6-5 and wired the field by six, what a game, eh?

But take a look at the final time and the fractions - she went 47.22 to the half, 59.27 to five-eighths, and completed the six furlongs in 1:10.25. That means she got the last eighth in 10.98 seconds - perhaps she thought she was still running in an under tack show! We do see some crazy closing turf fractions sometimes, such as the ones we saw at Gulfstream last winter. And while there were some pretty good come-home times later in the card, there was nothing like this. And this was a two-year old filly on a course rated 'good.' Not too shabby.