- Read in the Daily News that Sweetnorthernsaint returned to action with a win at Laurel on Thursday, running the seven furlongs in 1:23.70 under a hand ride from Ramon Dominguez. What the article doesn't say is that it was a public pari-mutuel workout, at odds of 1-20, against just two hopeless opponents.
But what a workout it was; in fact, the stretch run qualifies more as a gallop, he was going so easily. Yet, he got the final eighth in 11.97 seconds, while racing under no encouragement, according to the race chart. It was his first race since his second place finish in the Preakness. "Hopefully this didn't take anything out of him—I don't think it did," said trainer Michael Trombetta, and I can't imagine that it did.
- Tom Albertani issued his usual "we couldn't ask him to be doing any better right now about Bernardini, and what else do you expect? John Ward is skipping the Classicwith Strong Contender and will aim him for the Gulfstream handicaps next year. Wild Desert is said to be a possiblity for the Classic, but why?
- Came Home is off to just a middling start at stud here in his first year. He has no stakes winners thus far, and, according to Equiline, had just four winners as of Oct 16. In fact, his stud fee has been slashed from $40,000 to $25,000 for 2007.
But he had a first-time winner today at Keeneland with the cleverly named Promisei'llbehome, out of Maddie's Promise, a stakes winning mare by Dehere. He took the second at 10-1 for Jonathan Sheppard; and according to Forumlator, that's the trainer's first debut juvenile winner in at least five years, out of just 15 prior attempts. Promisei'llbehome descends from the female family of the great two-time sprint winner Housebuster - the champ's second dam, Dolphins Dream, is the third dam of Promisei'llbehome.
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Friday, October 20, 2006
Sweet Return
Posted by Alan Mann at 3:14 PM
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3 Comments:
Was just looking @ Dan Illman's blog, and he says that while "all the hype is with the BC Juvenile runners", he's more interested in "under the radar horses like Tiz Wonderful". I wonder how he'd feel if he knew that his under-the-radar horse was the 20/1 favorite for the Derby...
I'm intrigued by the apparent entry of Hurricane Run, and the possible entry of Shirocco, in the BC Turf. While those two would tower over the Turf field in terms of credentials (and would certainly take a lot of toteboard action), neither one seems to be in top form right now. They also would prefer soft ground, which they probbaly won't get. Meanwhile, Cacique and English Channel, who rank below the Euros in pecking order, are in great form. So, who would deserve to be favored between those four? Should make for a very interesting edition of the Turf, and a very good betting race if you happened to have an opinion.
Sheppard just doesn't have many two year olds in his barn, but when he runs them and wins with them, they're typically very good. The man known for training steeplechasers and grass marathoners trained a pretty good two year old: Storm Cat in 1985, who finished 2nd to Tasso in the BC Juvenile.
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