Sunday Notes

Tar Heel Mom shipped down to Florida from the cold up here and won a graded stakes race at Gulfstream on Saturday for trainer Stanley Hough. Which graded stakes? Who cares, just another Grade 3 stakes, there's so many of them and so many of them are so thoroughly mediocre and nondescript, that it doesn't really have much meaning anymore.

But anyway, this six year old daughter of Flatter last ran third in the ungraded Garland of Roses on the inner track in her first race since having a screw inserted to correct a small condylar fracture in her hind cannon bone suffered six month earlier. A skeptic of the sport might question why a five-year old horse would be sent back to the races after breaking a bone, but this mare obviously loves to race, so then wouldn't it in a way be cruel not to?

But anyway, the Garland of Roses has proven a productive race thus far, with winner Nicole H and runner-up Meese Rocks returning to run 1-2 in the Interborough on New Year's Day. Later today, McVictory, who ran 4th in the Garland of Roses, is the 2-1 second choice, for Pletcher, in the featured Lady on the Run stakes. She stretches out to a two turn mile here, and that might help this daughter of Victory Gallop, who has shown a distinct uptick in her Beyers and class level over the last year. She went two turns two races back, running a sharp second to Spacy Tracy, who came back to win the G2 Top Flight (graded status of course means something when I'm trying to make a case for a horse). And she finished fastest of all in the Garland of Roses, getting the final split in a spiffy 12.14 seconds. Here, she'll have to contend with stablemate Quiet Giant and her jockey Ramon Dominguez and his 36% winning percentage. She comes off an 8 length win in the slop, but has shown ability on fast tracks too and is clearly the horse to beat.