Belmont Wednesday

- As the second week of Belmont begins, the racing remains a little Aqueduct-ish for now. But a few interesting horses on the card for Wednesday, especially Acquired Cat, who caught my attention when she ran off to win her debut, at six furlongs on the turf, by six lengths, getting the last eighth in 10.98 seconds; this after getting pounded to 6-5 from her 9-2 morning line for Frank Alexander. You gotta love that kind of stuff. For some reason, she then ran on the dirt, and unfortunately, I was sucked in and bet her that day at Saratoga when she ran 4th.

She went back to grass, but stretched out to a mile, opened up five but got nipped by Brushed Gold, a pretty nice horse who subsequently put in two acceptably mediocre performances in stakes company. Acquired Cat made her three-year old debut at Gulfstream just last month, which I missed because who the hell pays any attention to racing at Gulfstream after the Florida Derby? It's like the track doesn't exist anymore. But returning to five furlongs, she came off the pace this time rallying three wide, and just held off the ground-saving Rolling True.

In this field on Wednesday, she looks like a big favorite to me, but she's listed as a moderate 3-1 favorite. I dunno about you, but she looks a lot closer to 3-5 to me. There are a couple of horses with nice grass form, but at routes. She's the only one with sharp sprint form on turf, and it's extremely sharp sprint form; and Alexander is 22% 2nd off layoffs. So I say, if she's 3-1, cash in that 401k, as someone, I don't quite remember who, recently said.

Earlier on the card, in the second race, Storm Eyed Belle makes her first start since winning by six in her debut last December for Contessa. She was 8-1 in the morning line off three moderate breezes, went off at 7-2 and won off by six. Woo hoo! She's by Storm Boot, and is out of a mare by Captain Bodgit. second to Silver Charm in the 1997 Derby, who's a half-sister to Kip Deville.

The featured 8th is the Screenland Stakes, 6 1/2 furlongs for New York-breds; and there are a couple of very impressive looking three year olds in here. Steve Asmussen got away with running Chief's Lake (Yonaguska) for a $50k tag in his second start; since then he's won three in a row, all by daylight, all on this track, most recently in the restricted Sleepy Hollow last October. Asmussen does very well at this track when he's not suspended, scoring with 25% of his runners in the last two years; and at the spring meet last year (a statistic easy to discern since he was banned during the fall meet), he was 9 for 26, and 65% in the money.

The morning line favorite is Bustin Stones, trained by Bruce Levine, rolling along at a 20% pace in 2007, almost exclusively at the Big A. This guy is strictly a Northeast trainer; looking at his record over the last five years, I don't see a starter further south than Laurel. Bustin Stones is two-for-two, and went straight from romping in maiden company to win a restricted stakes by four. That's good for earnings - gross earnings that is, over $84,000. Bustin Stones is by City Zip, the half-brother to Ghostzapper who has gone from standing for $7500 in Coxsackie, NY, to $20,000 and residence at Lane's End.

And that brings me to the latest misfortune in my little stable. Just Zip It, a daughter of City Zip herself, who just last month came back from the farm recovered from sore shins, is heading back to Virginia. Bill Turner noticed some deep shoulder soreness, and she's been given the rather inexact diagnosis of "deep muscle pull or a hairline fracture, which won't show up on x-rays." Either way, she'll need a full month off, and then the long process back to racing fitness. We're not expecting to see her on the track until fall.