Monday Morning Notes - Feb 25

- If the morning line oddsmaker was off on Aegean Breeze, then the public was even worse, sending her off at 9-1! But it may have been the slow start of Just Zip It (6-1) than helped her prevail, returning an exacta of $106.50, that was light if you apply the win price times place price rule of thumb. Our City Zip filly was left at the gate, and given the torrid pace up front, that may have not been an awful thing. Less helpful was some tight quarters turning for home and through the stretch that she had to battle through. Just Zip It can run on the lead or off the pace; bottom line is that she just loves to run, and she picked up another $9200 in purse money in once again falling short to Aegean Breeze, who also beat her in her return race. Another solid effort, and the race was two seconds faster than the race she won earlier this month. It brings her overall record to 4-1-3-0, good for earnings of $52,000.

And the subsequent corrected time of the Fountain of Youth shows how hazardous instant analyses can be if you can't depend on the track teletimer. As it turned out, the pace was a fairly solid one of 23.56, 23.37, and 23.87 to the three quarters. They came home in 38.73, and the final furlong was not at all bad at 12.53. So I think this makes the efforts by the winner and runner-up better than we initially thought; and Court Vision....hmmm, I'm not sure. Still was his first race of the year, and he rallied fairly well. But the early pace was not nearly as slow as we thought; and note that he gained only 3/4's of a length from the stretch call to the finish.

It was a public workout for War Pass, as he ran under a firm hold and drew off without encouragement to win easily against an outmatched field. His fractions were a moderate 23.94, then 22.78, a breather at 25.18 (hmmm, do you think that fraction is right?), and then he cruised home in 24.48. So a second half of 49.66 after the opening one of 46.72. Sound ugly? Well, that's North American racing for you, and there's no denying that it was impressive display of harnessed speed. War Pass still has some questions to answer though, and he'll undoubtedly face some stiffer tests and soon.