Notes - Jan 29

- Pegasus Wind was just awful in his three-year old debut at 3-10. 3-10! But Wayne Lukas reacted the way he usually has the last few years when one of his horses intended for bigger and better throws in a putrid effort. “I think we can just draw a line through the race. Throw it out....I am going right on with my plans we had when we brought him here.” [Arkansas Democrat Gazette] Let's hope we're not looking at another Going Wild in the making here.

I actually had a live double ticket with Dixie Belle winner Devil House and a horse other than Pegasus Wind, though not the correct one. Despite the fact that Lukas has gotten off to a pretty good start at Oaklawn, I just had a feeling about this one, and only partly because my Formulator stats showed that over the last five years, Lukas was 1 for 34 with 61-180 day layoff horses cutting back from a route to a sprint. Make that 1 for 35. The race winner, Mucho Gusto, was 3-1 morning line, sent off at 8-1 for Asmussen. The inflated price was partly because of the way Pegasus Wind was bet, and perhaps also because the horse was entered for the $75,000 optional claiming tag despite being eligible for the 'NW 1 other than' allowance conditions. That's kinda like the trainer saying, "Take my horse. Please."

- A more positive statistic has been compiled by Pussycat Doll, Bob Baffert's five-year old daughter of Real Quiet. She's not only now three-for-three in Grade 1 seven furlong races after taking the Santa Monica at Santa Anita on Sunday, but she's blown away the fields in each case. This time, she was coming off nearly nine months away, but it sure helps when four of them are lined up across the track at the half mile pole in 44.08, and you have Garrett Gomez observing the proceedings from not far behind. Trevor Denman noted that he was looking for room through the tiring leaders in the stretch, but Gomez could have steered her around the grandstand rail and still managed to give Baffert a big win on the 28th anniversary of his first thoroughbred winner.

- And I guess I forgot to mention that Highland Cat did not run on Sunday; it turned out that the race we were hoping for was an extra one, and it didn't go. Instead, he breezed a half mile in 49.50.