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Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Yikes!

- Whether or not you fully appreciated Lava Man's win in the Hollywood Gold Cup, you just MUST check out this photo taken right at the start, via the Final Turn Gallery. As a poster on the Derby List said, YIKES!

- The 4th race at Belmont on Sunday was pretty cool; one of those six furlong grass races for maidens that we'll surely be seeing a lot of at Saratoga. I mentioned Left Me Breathless after her last start, when she was dead on the board in her debut at 17-1 despite a stellar turf pedigree. She closed a ton for second that day, so it was no surprise that she was the 3-2 favorite here.

But a couple of first time starters attracted a lot of money. Dowell House is trained by Todd Pletcher, so what do you expect? Plus, she’s by Danzig out of Pico Teneriffe, a multiple graded stakes winner on grass. She was the 7-2 second choice. John Ward had a first-timer too. Ocean Fever was the 4th choice at 5-1. At $450,000, she's another high-priced Oxley/Ward purchase, but a look at Formlator showed that for Ward to send one out on the grass first-time is very rare - to the tune of just twice over the last three years. She's by Fusaichi Pegasus (still looking for his second North American stakes winner of the year - his Shermanesque was second in the Bashford Manor on Saturday), out of Ocean Cat, a stakes winning daughter of Storm Cat. Her second dam is the Grade 1 (Matron, Delaware Oaks) winner Pacific Princess.

But the firsters were no factor, as longshot Brouhaha opened up a big lead, and managed to hold off Left Me Breathless, who no doubt will benefit from a stretchout. The Frank Alexander-trainee is from a more modest background - by Mecke, and a "mere" $130,000 two-year old purchase; but she has a little turf pedigree of her own, being inbred 4x4 to Dr. Fager, and 5x5 to Tom Fool.

- Thanks to reader Stalusk for visiting, and for pointing out that Grey Swallow has been sold to Australian interests and is done racing in the U.S, at least for now. He's due to be shipped down under later this month, and will be prepared for a start in the W. S. Cox Plate (Aus-G1), Australasia's weight-for-age championship, in October. [Thoroughbred Times]

5 Comments:

Greg said...

I had Brouhaha at the track the other day!!!!! $40 to win @ 17-1.
Last time back she was first off the layoff and they went the first quarter 21.1 and she never made the lead. So Yesterday when she got a clear lead in 22.9 I felt pretty good about her chances.

I see that Doug O'Neil is almost through with his month long penalty of having to have all his starters report to a detention barn 24 hours before the race. According to DRF he is 8 for 67 while starting his horses out of the detention barn during the month (12%). Isn't it always interesting how a 25%-30% "super trainer" all of a sudden becomes very average when his horses start reporting to a detention barn ???

Alan Mann said...

Greg - Nice job on Brouhaha! He was one of my contenders, but I ended up passing on the race.

I read somewhere O'Neill mentioning the detention barn as one of the reasons for Lava Man almost getting beat. So I suppose that trainers can try to use the detention barn as an excuse in itself!

Anonymous said...

Horses that dont do well in the detention barn is a well established fact. Some trainers will use it for an excuse no doubt. I had one that was pretty nuts about being any where but his own stall. Got him a goat for a companion....dont know what the rules are now, but we could take the goat to the shipping barn and the detention barn back then. It kept him nice and quiet, Nick

Anonymous said...

...i had no plans to bet the Hollywood Gold Cup, but i noticed that the bridge-jumpers were on Lava Man in the show pool...knowing that anything can happen, and thinking that Magnum was probably as much of a lock to show as Lava Man, i threw a small bet on Magnum to show...90% i make 5 cents on the dollar, but a tiny chance of collecting a boxcar payout...so of course, Lava Man almost goes down at the start, but gets up to win the race while Magnum finishes out of the money...good grief... 8^P

Alan Mann said...

Your Tent Or Mine is hurt and out for the rest of the year. I don't recall hearing any bad news about Ermine.