Odds and Ends

- It's taken Edgar Prado a while to get back into the groove returning from his injury; he won five of his first 45 rides at the Big A. But he had a natural hat trick on Sunday, winning three in a row.

If you played some of the real high percentage guys there, you may have fared well. Mike Hushion (5-15), Anthony Dutrow (5-11) and Richard Dutrow (5-14) all had winners; though in the latter's case, the stats don't include those runners saddled by assistant Jose Rodriguez while Dutrow was serving his latest suspension. I wish someone would do something about that.

Not amongst the high percentage guys is Pletcher. He'd won once out of 19 runners before the 20K claimer Hesogoodwithmoney won the first. Overall, at all tracks, the Toddster is 11 for 91 (12%) over the last 30 days. In stakes races over that period, he's three for 38, which includes the less than dominant win by 1-2 Spanky Fischbein at the Big A last weekend (as well as English Channel's BC Turf).

Colonel John passed the two-turns test with aplomb in the Real Quiet Stakes for two-year olds at Hollywood. He was ridden with extreme confidence by Corey Nakatani, who allowed him to drop back to sixth on the backstretch. There had to be some anxious moments to those who backed him at 7-10, as he seemed to be boxed along the rail with a lot of traffic in front of him. But Nakatani held the rail, and exploded to the lead after finding a seam in the two path turning for home. Overextended got second; he ran a distant 7th in the mud and muck of the Juvenile two weeks ago, and seemed none the worse for the wear back on familiar grounds.

Colonel John is trained by Eoin Harty for WinStar. He's by Tiznow, out of a mare by Turkoman (also the broodmare sire of Hard Spun). Tiznow is second on the third-crop sire list, and 30th overall, and this was his sixth stakes winner of the year.