Keeneland Notes

- I noticed that if you go to the 'Handicapping' tab at the Special, they have my Keeneland picks, but still have Pete Fornatale's name up. If you go to the main page here, and click on the link on the right, I'm properly credited. So I figured that if I came up empty, I wouldn't say anything and let Pete get the discredit for it.

But I actually did pretty well, so I'll have to drop the Clancy boys a note about that. Three winners on top; nothing spectacular, but I did have Marcavelly, a mild upsetter in the Grade 3 Transylvania. Whatsmore, while it didn't take a genius to pick Time Squared on the drop back down to maiden company, I selected the $324 triple cold, including 53-1 shot Out Of Aces in the show spot. Three other of my top picks finished second (one via a scratch), another third. And I had Rendon Street ($18.40) and Rathor ($14.60) for third. Not bad, eh? Of course, on Saturday, when I'll be at the track to back up my opinions with some cold cash, I probably won't have a thing. The fact is, there's a big difference between picking winners on paper and deciding on whom and how to bet.

Sedgefield ran right out of the Derby picture when he was insanely wide going around the first turn. I thought he did well to last as long as he did, and he showed some class fighting hard to try, unsuccessfully, to hang on to third. Marcavelly is a son of Johnnesburg, who is having a good week; he's also the sire of Scat Daddy. He's out of a mare by Majestic Light who's a half-sister to the G1(T) San Juan Capistrano winner Prince True, and Hidden Light, the dam of Artie Schiller.

Yate's Black Cat made a successful return to the races with his usual strong rally, and though the winning margin was a head, it was one of the safest heads you'll see. But the most spectacular rally of the day was the one by Time Squared. He had a bad start and trailed the field, not necessarily fatal in his case. He started his rally coming into the turn, and Leparoux stayed as close to the rail as he could. But there was a wall in front of him, and he steered the colt virtually sideways out to the middle of the track - the chart says eight wide, and it was at least that much. It looked almost like a quarter horse race in the stretch, with Time Squared widest of all wearing down the rest to get up by a length. According to Trakus, he was 20.9 feet off the rail at the sixteenth pole. Given how adventurous his trainer Patrick Biancone is, I imagine we'll be seeing him back in graded stakes company before long. He's by Fusaichi Pegasus, out of a full sister, by AP Indy, to Stephen Got Even.