Wednesday Night Notes - Jan 2

- Pretty pedestrian card at Gulfstream on Thursday. Maybe Frank doesn't get that special tingly feeling on opening day. The first race of the meeting is a 12.5K maiden claimer, and seven of the mere nine events are either claimers or starters allowances.

The feature is an ungraded grass stakes for older fillies and mares. Bill Mott starts his steady five-year old Quite a Bride (Stormy Atlantic). She was in the money in all six of her 2007 starts, all stakes; she won the G3 Mint Julep at Churchill, and her last effort was a third behind Precious Kitten and Vacare in a Grade 2 in October. Quite a Bride is listed as a solid 9-5 favorite in the morning line.

I'll go for the mild upset with Snow Cone (5-1). This daughter of Cryptoclearance improved steadily throughout her three-year old season, and looks like she's ready to roll at age four. She returned from a brief layoff in a Calder stakes on Dec 8, a race in which she lost ground in some bad traffic entering the turn. But she swung out and rallied very impressively for second, just a length behind Pretoria Light, who subsequently was a neck behind Rutherienne in the G3 Genter, and in front of Cher Ami, who returned to romp in a stakes on the dirt. Elvis Trujillo ends up elsewhere; but note that today's rider Eddie Castro wins at a 27% rate for this barn (from a sample of 98) with an ROI of $4.02. I don't know what transpired here, but a jockey change is not always the rider's choice. Snow Cone is out of a stakes winning daughter of Cavaet who is a full sister to the G1 grass winner Ops Smile.

One more filly worth mentioning is Meddling, stuck out on the AE list. This four-year old daughter of Devil's Bag has only started twice, and is unbeaten, most recently on the grass. So she's probably one to watch down the road for the red-hot Graham Motion. This barn is 13 for 36 (36%) over the last month. Looking at his overall stats on Formulator through Jan 1, he had four winners in his last six starts, all at different tracks - Laurel, Santa Anita, Calder, and Tampa. That's Toddster-type stuff!

- Haven't read whether TVG and HRTV will be able to take wagers on Aqueduct on Thursday. But I found it interesting that, on Tuesday, HRTV at least televised the races, while TVG didn't. I presume that if one was permitted to carry the races, the other was too, so it must have been a programming choice by TVG. HRTV couldn't wait to play with their new toy. TVG probably didn't want to distract viewers from playing Jill Byrne's Pick Four selections at Turfway.