Darley's Boys

- Great cover shot on the new Bloodhorse, featuring the Darley Boys - Street Sense (Front and Center), with Hard Spun, Discreet Cat, and Any Given Saturday. Street Sense is looking straight at the camera with a quizzical look, as in: C'mon man, what is this place, where's the rail, where's Calvin, get me outta here, there's nothing to do! Where's that big guy, I want another shot at him..! You never know; he could prove to be disinterested and return to the races. But actually, his...er, apparatus is on display in the photo, and I'd guess he'll probably find his way. Street Sense, at $75,000, is the highest priced stud amongst next year's rookie squad; Hard Spun is second at $50,000, and Any Given Saturday tied for third (with Corinthian) for $40,000; Discreet Cat will stand for $30,000.

Smarty Jones has been occupying attractive two page spreads in the magazine of late, and there he is again. The ad points out that he's the Leading First Crop Sire of Yearlings for 2007. That's one sire list I don't think I've ever seen in Bloodhorse. I think it might be kind of an unofficial, made-up list. But you get the idea.

Smarty Jones colts brought $650,000 at the Saratoga Select Yearling Sale and $600,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale and ten of his colts and fillies brought more than $300,000 as yearlings. [Three Chimneys Farms]

34 of his yearlings sold at an average of a bit over $200,000 at sale this year.

- If anyone at Hollywood Park had a sense of humor, they'd change the purse of Saturday's Grade 1 Cash Call Futurity to $744,375, which represents a year's worth of interest if you were to borrow the actual $750,000 in prize money from the sponsoring company.

Massive Drama was a universal tip for Baffert/Zayat winning his debut at 8-5 at Monmouth on Breeders Cup Preview day. He'd been entered the prior month at Belmont, and I wrote on September 6 that his first crop sire Kafwain was off to a nice start with six winners, and two stakes winners. Now, three months later, Kafwain has 12 winners and four stakes winner, including Massive Drama, who became the sire's only graded stakes horse thus far when he took the Hollywood Prevue. Kafwain (Cherokee Run) is number 11 on the first-year sire list, having a solid freshman season for his $10,000 fee at Darley. Not front cover of Bloodhorse stuff, but pretty good nonetheless.

But this will be the first try around two turns for Massive Drama, whereas Colonel John, with whom he figures to contend for favoritism, won the Real Quiet by three at this distance on this track. I'm looking back at my impressions of that race:

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.

When I went back today to look at it again, I wasn't quite as blown away, to be honest; the horse did save a lot of ground relative to the rest of the field. Still, he looks like the legitimate favorite off that effort.

The Toddster is hitting .333 at Hollywood; seven winners from 21 starters. Monba is undefeated in two starts, and stretches out to two turns. But unlike Baffert's colt, Monba could offer some value. He's by Wavering Monarch Maria's Mon out of a half sister, by Easy Goer, to the Alcibiades winner Silent Account; Gomez picks this one out of Pletcher's trio. Eaton's Gift is also owned by Zayat, and also tries two turns, he for Dale Romans. His race two back on Oct 19 at Keeneland is a super-duper key race, having produced three winners and four runner-ups out of eight horses to run back. But being by Johannesburg out of a Carson City mare doesn't make me think he'll love the route.

I liked Shore Do as my longshot in the Juvenile based on his third place finish in the Norfolk. I explained why in this post. His distant 8th in the slop at Monmouth is a total throwout, and now he's switched to the barn of Bobby Frankel. So if I liked him there, I gotta like him here, especially off a string of solid works on the Cushion Track.