Inner Track Time! [Almost]

jp mentioned No Such Word, who won the Gazelle on Saturday in highly impressive fashion. Despite being the outmost of a foursome spread across the track, she just cruised up to the lead on the turn without any urging from Terry Thompson. and reported home in 12.70 for the final furlong. Her final time of 1:51.05 was actually a full second slower than that of the two-year old colt To Honor and Serve; but I'd guess that the ground loss accounted for that. Gotta love her durability too; this was her tenth start of the year.

No Such Word is a daughter (out of an It's Freezing mare) of Canadian Frontier, a Gone West stallion who stands at Airdrie in Kentucky for $3500 and a menu of discounts.

✔ 10% discount on all stud fees paid by Nov 1.
✔ 10% discount for 2 mares to the same sire.
✔ 15% discount for 3 or more mares to the same sire.

Rough time for breeders as you know.

Dubai Dancer, the 2-1 second choice in the Gazelle, was just awful; never in it and finished 8th, some 20 lengths behind. Seems hard to explain given her stellar form, including a stakes win around two turns, since returning to action in August. They say that fillies sometimes throw in a bad one, and perhaps she was just having a bad day. Races like the Triple Crown and the Breeders' Cup become so magnified to the point where every aspect of the race is scrutinized in far more detail, as we saw in the incident involving Life At Ten in the Distaff. Could very well be that, if Jerry Bailey was there to interview Ramon Dominguez for ESPN before the race, he would have said that the filly wasn't warming up well. Probably happens all the time....if not to the extreme degree that we heard and saw on Breeders Cup Friday.

- Yes folks, it's that time again as the inner track opens for business at the Big A on Wednesday. [UPDATE: Oops, canceled today, will have to wait.] The turf course remains open however as December starts; no less than three scheduled on the card (though there's been a persistent light rain around most of Tuesday which is supposed to drag into the morning). All of you global warming skeptics might take a look at a chart showing how late the turf course at Aqueduct has been operational over the years. That should convince you.