That's two Grade 1 wins in a row for Donn winner Giant Oak; that comes after 14 losing efforts in a row (15 since he actually crossed the wire first) of mostly reliable rallies that nonetheless fell short on various different surfaces. He earned a career high Beyer of 105 in the Donn, benefiting from a contested pace to storm down the center of the track past some weary rivals. I didn't think it was a very good race call by track announcer Larry Collmus; he completely ignored the valiant effort of Morning Line, who staved off race-long challenges to lead at the sixteenth pole. And I personally wouldn't have characterized the effort by the winner as "HUGE!" He was very good, but had everything go his way.
Giant Oak had the owners of Square Eddie to thank for the pace scenario. Don't really know what they were thinking, shipping their horse across the country to face top competition off his return after a one year layoff. How much more meaningful than synthetic form do you think races over the dirt surface at Santa Anita, one which routinely produces 44 second half miles in maiden claiming races, will turn out to be? Square Eddie backed up to last, and will hopefully go back to where he came from and stay there.
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Monday, February 07, 2011
Monday Morning Notes
Posted by Alan Mann at 7:27 AM
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10 Comments:
Yes it was a horrible spot to place Square Eddie, who might be a decent sprinter, but that he would be on the lead cutting fast fractions WAS completely predictable, so Morning Line backers should not have bee surprised:-)
As an I Want Revenge backer I thought my jock moved too soon into a torid pace costing him the place, not that I would have cashed regardless.
Giant Oak is going to be very tough at 10f.
Dude, I enjoy your blog but races are decided at the finish line, you obviously liked Morning Line and he ran LARGE but Giant Oak won the race, fair and square.
^^ OK Larry, I'll keep that in mind.
Anonymous here again, you could be right upon a second viewing, Larry was so proud of himself picking up Giant Oak's run down the center that he dismissed the race the other 4 ran particularly Morning line who had every right to give it up and he never did until that last challenge.
that's what I'm saying. A simple "And Morning Line is game," would have sufficed. (In fact, all three probably deserved a mention at some point as you say.) Without that, you don't get the true picture of the race just from the call. That's what makes a race call great IMHO. Thanks for taking another look/listen.
I dunno, what was the split for the final furlong between those dueling leaders? It probably was just under 14 seconds. They were all dying. I suppose they ran creditible races, but I don't think any of them ran huge. Rule should be kept to a mile or shorter, and I Want Revenge ain't what he used to be and probably never will. Morning Line is G2 material. -jp
They ran between 13.30 (Rule) and 13.41 (IWR). Pretty respectable, actually.
Are any of these truly G1 material? All relative.
hey Alan next year I will send my vote in for you to call the Donn as I'm sure you would have did a better job than LC. Always nit picking aren't you. The horse came down the middle of the track and blew right by them and yes ran a HUGE race to win. It's not about who ran second, it's about who crossed the finish line first and that means LC made the right call as HE saw it. Gee, what did you see. Oh yea you focused on the second place finisher not the winner. Get real eh.
LC is a professional race caller. He's miles better than that hack at TB Downs, but they could pull a random clown out of Ebor City and they'd sound less grating than that guy. I still prefer Stauffer and Durkin over Collmus, but he does a reasonably good job. -jp
Vic Stauffer is terrible.
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