Take A Bow

- Et tu, John? Looks like Not to the Swift has also succumbed to the temptation of Beta Blogger; I feel as if it's closing in around me. I'm a bit scared by the ominous warning of: Your blogs and profile will stay the same — but you can’t go back to the old Blogger application. Jeez, that's kind of final, isn't it? What if I don't like it? I have this fear of somehow losing all of my posts if something goes wrong. And John's blog is morphing before my very eyes - it just turned yellow.

Anyway, John was excited by Barclay Tagg's first timer Nobiz Like Shobiz, who won at Belmont on Saturday, as was Patrick, another Beta Blogger, who commented that he's hoping this is what [sire] albert the great needed, loved that horse.

The horse in question is a two-year old son of the abovementioned sire, out of a Storm Cat mare, and he blew away a field that featured a Pletcher entry who finished 2nd and last at what seemed like (in retrospect of course) an extremely overbet 7-10. Nobiz Like Shobiz, making his debut at a flat mile, opened up turning for home, and just kept on going, drawing off to win by 10 3/4. According to the race chart, he widened on his own courage, winning as his rider [Cornelio Velasquez] pleased. He stopped the timer at 1:35.26; final quarter in an effortless 25 seconds. And by the way, I've been reading some criticism of Tom Durkin lately, but one thing at which he's quite impeccable is his calls of the margin of victory in routs like this; he had it (almost) on the nose at ten.

As for Albert the Great, he is indeed off to a slow start at stud, standing for $7500 at Three Chimneys. When a horse has his second crop on the track, but the blurb on his Stallion Register page starts off Fast. Sound. Honest. rather than touting the number of stakes winners he's had, that's not a good sign. He had his share of winners in his first juvenile crop with 15, but his stakes output consists of two seconds, one of those in Mexico. He's going to have to pick that up, or he could find himself south of the border as well.

But a look at Albert the Great's race record shows you why Patrick is so enamored of him. He won five graded stakes, and at age four, he ran second in Grade 1's four times, and third in the Classic. I wonder if the plight of Sun King reminds Nick Zito of anything..

Albert the Great won the Widener at Hialeah, establishing a track record of 1:45.52 (!) for a mile and an eighth. He won the Jockey Club Gold Cup at age three, with older horses Lemon Drop Kid and Behrens far behind. "Look at him stride away powerfully," Durkin exclaimed as he trounced his field by six. You can watch the stretch drive of that race right here.