RSS Feed for this Blog

Friday, May 16, 2008

Notes - May 16

- Big Brown will once again run with front bandages.

[Dutrow] said he uses them to keep the horse from clipping himself on his right heel and causing what he says is a burn, or a blister.

"We should have used them in the Florida Derby," Dutrow said. "It's not a big deal." [Albany Times Union]
- Nick Kling boils Big Brown's now-delayed but still inevitable breeding deal down to the crude details:
I’d be willing to wager that when Big Brown’s lead shank is given over to his new handlers there will be no sentimentality in the trade-off, no tears of good-bye shed. I suspect it will be akin to what happens if you bought a tanker load of crude oil at $60 a barrel and were delivering it to a refinery at $120-plus. [Troy Record]
- Dr. Scot Waterman, the executive director of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, told the NY Daily News that Dutrow's monthly use of the steroid Winstrol would make Big Brown test positive in ten states in which the drug is allowed for therapeutic use only, in line with the RMTC's guidelines.
“If one of (Dutrow’s) horses were running in (those 10 states) with a dose on the 15th, he’d probably have a positive,” said Waterman. “That type of use is what moved us to begin the process we began a couple years ago. It’s not just (Dutrow). There was evidence that these products were being overused or abused.”
And by the way, don't ask Dutrow why he administers the drug to his horses on the 15th of each month. "You'd have to ask the vet what the purpose of that is....I don't know what it does. I just like using it." [Baltimore Sun] Sounds almost like he uses it himself.

- Another winner for trainer Randi Persaud at Belmont on Thursday when Wood Winner took the first; and the barn's Are We Dreamin was third in the third at 7-1. Persaud is an impressive 10-4-3-2 on the meet.

Kiaran McLaughlin took the first baby race of the NY season with Dream Play, a Hennessy filly who sold for $325,000 at Calder in February. She's a three-quarter sister to the Grade 1 winner Diplomat Lady. The Toddster had a 1-2 favorite in third place finisher Iberian Gate, who had run second on the Poly at Keeneland.

If the Breeders Cup Marathon is going to spur the carding of more mile and a half races like Thursday's 8th, then no thanks. It was 42 lengths back from winner Delosvientos to the last place horse in the five horse field.

5 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the last place horse shouldn't have been in the race? It's not like distance horses are going to come out of the woodwork and make for quality races right away. If people keep carding them and offering decent purses, it'll happen. But not right away.

Anonymous said...

But you can't keep carding them ,pull 5 horse fields and offer decent purses that take in no handle for long. I don't have any answers, but to ask tracks to take it on the chin in the name of "industry well being" seems untenable. The only way I see it is for state racing czars to mandate slot money flow into purses based on things other than in state foaling/ breeding/ stallions... And then the product had better entertain, because when the slots faucet gets turned off (coming soon) it would devolve again..

El Angelo said...

We have a winner for dumbest article of the week:

http://www.slate.com/id/2191503/

There's so much wrong with this I don't know where to begin.

Anonymous said...

Big Brown was juiced up yesterday and is ready to go.

Anonymous said...

I liked the Fit For Fight, and particularly like the way Evening Attire managed to overcome an even more atrocious gate start than usual to rally for second behind the much-the-best winner.

But we all knew it's going to take some growing pains to get horses ready for a mile and a half and beyond. There just aren't enough horses tailor-made for a marathon right now, and surely not enough people willing to get them ready to give it a try. If the return to a mile and a half Brooklyn (yay!) can attract a better field than yesterday's Fit To Fight, maybe even pulling someone---anyone---from the Pimlico Special willing to gamble on it, I think I'd be willing to forgive a slaughter in an overnight stakes like yesterday produced. It's just going to take more patience than has been exhibited to date. (If I even bring up "it's a marathon, not a sprint" as a cliché of choice on the subject, would I get beaten up for it?)