- Yet another winner for Biancone at Keeneland. Sadler's Trick, who made a successful switch to the turf at Saratoga, won Friday's 5th, an off-the-turfer. Here's another successful turf-to-Polytrack winner, and he's now two-for-two on Polytrack. By Favorite Trick, he's from the distaff family of English Channel, as detailed in this post.
Biancone's four race winning streak came to an end when his Pure Incentive ran 4th in the off-the-turf, Grade 3 Valley View Stakes. And here was another turf-to-Polytrack winner in Meribel, who was two-for-two on the grass at Saratoga for Christophe Clement. Her second race there was particularly impressive. She subsequently missed by a neck in a stakes at Laurel, and on Friday, she was sent off at 2-1 in her first race on Polytrack. She was dead last as usual, in a field of 13, and was widest of all on the turn - ten wide, according to the race chart!
- Off-the-turf races at Keeneland are apparently quite rare, and two days in a row, as happened on Thursday and Friday, is downright unprecedented. In fact, it had only happened four times since the turf course was installed in 1985, which seems pretty amazing. Those other dates were April 4, 1987, because of snow; Oct. 19, 1989 (wet); Oct. 12, 1990 (wet); and Oct. 27, 1995 (all races except for a stakes race, heavy rain). [DRF]
- The first slots machines have arrived at Gulfstream. Frank Stronach, never one to waste an opportunity to employ scantily-clad women, had a welcoming committee on hand to see to it that his new toys immediately felt right at home.
I guess he didn't have enough women for all of the machines, and had to dip into his pool of corporate suits. How uncomfortable do these guys look? I'm sure he'll have a similar contingent on hand to greet the horsemen when they arrive for the 2007 meet.
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Friday, October 20, 2006
Saturday Morning Notes - Oct 21
Posted by Alan Mann at 9:53 PM
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2 Comments:
There's a very interesting first-time starter going in today's 6th @ Oak Tree. EXHALE, a 2yo colt by the excellent Millennium Wind, sold for $800,000 at the Fasig-Tipton sale in February. He must've been a very impressive individual, considering that Millennium Wind's stud fee is a paltry $5,000. In his most recent drill (a bullet 59.0 gate drill over the Hollywood Park Cushion Track), he stormed home thru the final quarter, and my clocker had some very flattering things to say. I'm not expecting him to win today, because he doesn't appear to have much early speed, and he's trained by John Sadler (who never wins first time out), but keep an eye on this horse for the future. He certainly has some distance (and turf) breeding in him, as he's out of a Manila mare. Could make some noise down the line, if not today.
P.S.- Alan had mentioned Came Home the other day. There happens to be a Came Home firster in here named Take It Home, who debuts for the same connections that campaigned Came Home (not to mention his very talented sister, A.P. Assay). He worked a bullet 59.0 @ Santa Anita on Oct. 12 coming into this race.
Commentator drilled a half-mile in 45.60 over the Keeneland polytrack today. Wow.
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