Met Musings

I couldn't even remember who Alan Garcia rode to win last year's Met Mile after it was said that his win on Bribon (almost had to look that up too) was his second Met Mile win in a row. Oh yeah, Divine Park; I remember that one, whisked away to stud after just nine career races. His next start after the Met Mile was his last; the Woodward confirmed that he was never going to win any real distance races, so now he stands at Airdrie Stud for $17,500. I looked back at the news articles regarding his retirement, and didn't see anything about an injury. If you go to his Stallion Register page, there's a promotional video from Airdrie. In it, the farm's Bret Jones says: "Obviously, he's a Met Mile winner, which we've always viewed, and so many people viewed as one of the stallion-making races."

And maybe that's part of what is wrong with today's breeding - when a distance-challenged horse like Divine Park can be touted as a hot stallion prospect, in large part by virtue of winning the Met Mile with a final quarter of 26 3/5, passing exhausted horses who ran much too fast early. Monday's Met Mile was a similar scenario, though Bribon was a bit better, earning a Beyer of 106. He's a solid miler to be sure, but still it was a pretty grim affair in the stretch, with the winner laboring home in 25.24 after middle splits of 22.35 and 22.84. His connections have no intentions of trying him at anything but one turn distances.

There have been recent Met Mile winners who were not one-dimensional to be sure - Corinthian and Ghostzapper were proven as routers and ran dynamic Met Miles; the former earned a 108 while coming home in 24 1/5; and Ghostzapper made his final race a memorable Met with his spectacular romp in 1:33 1/5 in 2005. But a look at other recent winners - Silver Train, Pico Central, Aldebaran, Swept Overboard, and Exciting Story were all strictly sprinters and/or one-turn specialists (and, of those, only Silver Train is standing in the US). A big contrast from a peek back to the [Met Mile winners of the] 60's and 70's with proven distance horses like Forego, Cox's Ridge, State Dinner, Nodouble, In Reality, Executioner, and Buckpasser; and in earlier times, Kelso, Sword Dancer, Tom Fool, Gallant Man and Native Dancer. My, that was a versatile bunch. And indeed, some of those are familiar names in the pedigree charts. But I think that today, the notion of Met Mile as stallion producer is one that needs to change.

- There was talk before the Met Mile that it was a wide-open betting race, but I think that was false. Sure, it was an interesting, if somewhat ragtag collection of various disappointments, but, looking back - and this is more self-criticism than redboarding since I was guilty myself of buying the 'wide-open' hype - man, we should have all nailed that exacta. Bribon - Smooth Air were clearly the most likely winner and second most likely winner, in that order for a cool $32.20. Not bad at all for an easy exacta. And what the hell was up with Mr. Sidney being 6-1?

= The crowd was 10,099, which I guess isn't too bad, considering. It seems to me though that the card runs too long and far too late for a holiday such as Memorial Day. I didn't go myself; we had a BBQ planned, and why would I instead want to be at Belmont at 6PM in the dying moments of the three-day weekend? NYRA should try an early post time and get people out by 4:30. Then, I might have gone and made it an even 10,100.