Sunday Notes

In the 10th, Paniolo (12-1) makes his second start, for trainer Tom Bush, and I figure you could do much worse than have this horse at those odds. The streaky Bush has two winners and two very close seconds out of seven starters at Belmont, including Imperial River ($32.40), who kicked off that $33K super last week. This son of Invisible Ink (Thunder Gulch) never looked comfortable after being checked early, locked in on the rail and under what the chart describes as a firm hold throughout, then weaving greenly in the stretch. Becky's Kitchen, the race winner, was a fast closing second in the Summer Stakes at Woodbine on Saturday.

Paniolo has some highly unusual breeding, inbred as he is 3x3 to Conquistador Cielo. He's out of a Marquetry mare who's a half to the dam of the nice older stakes horse Wild Gams, and has some classic turf breeding further back in the pedigree; his sixth dam is Linaria, an Irish Oaks winner and two time Irish champ.

However, marring Paniolo's PP's is the 0-28 in the 2nd Start category for trainer Bush right there in black and white in the Form, and emphasized in the Closer Look comment.

First of all, that seems to be odd statistic, and I wonder if it's more of statistical anomaly than an indication that the barn is somehow lacking in this area. What's the logic....that a trainer may put too much emphasis on the debut and doesn't give them enough time to recover? Perhaps with some barns, but this one is just 11% with first timers over the last two years. So I'm not sure if the stat means much, or not.

And secondly, that stat is just plain wrong. Unless I'm misreading something, Formulator is showing me that So And So won the Lucy Scribner Stakes at Saratoga on August 24 for Bush in what was his second career start. So I'm not sure what's up with that stat, unless it means something else (horses that are still maidens making their second start)? In any event, someone at the Form should look into that; and I still think the horse is worth a few bucks at that price. Bwana Brave (9-2) finished well for second in his grass debut, for David Donk, who's had a couple of sharp maiden grass runners recently in Shrimp Dancer ($5.90) and runner-up Sachem Road.

Off to the Jets-Pats game, have a fantastic day!