Purchasing Power

- Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum and family may have shown some thin skin when they pulled their ads from the Racing Form in the wake of Andy Beyer's checkbook horsemanship column. But it hasn't moderated their aggressive spending at all. Perhaps if ABC does a story on 20/20 about it they will.

Continuing his quest to buy every fast two-year old on the continent, the Sheikh bought Blue Sky God, a graduate by five lengths in his second start, running six furlongs in 1:10.20 and earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 93. [Daily Racing Form} The outlandish prices Godolphin spends at the sales are just stupid and make me laugh. (Especially when I see something like Ever Shifting, a then-record $5.2 million two-year old for the Sheikh, making his debut, late in his three-year old year, on the inner track at the Big A in Wednesday's 6th). But this private purchasing, to me, shows the power that money has over people and the people with money who have no restraints, financially or ethically, in using it. I find it rather perverse. I mean, what horse owner doesn't fantasize daily about owning a two-year old that looks special? And then, it finally happens!!

But then, a Sheikh comes along with a big offer, and poof, it's gone. And of course you sell; from a business standpoint, you'd have to be a fool not to in almost every case. Do you think that if Just Zip It wins her second race by five in 1:10.20 and a 93 Beyer, and a representative of His Highness came by with wads of cash, I'd tell him to bug off?

Speaking of Just Zip It, she may run on Sunday in a six furlong maiden state-bred race, though I'm going to a 4:15 Jets game, so I'd prefer that she not. Or at least do so early in the day. The party line in the Castle Village group is that she ran her last 2 1/2 furlongs in 27 seconds. But how can you calculate that if you don't have any fractional times for first 3/8ths? If she's closing that fast, perhaps they'll be wathing her next race in the Royal Palace.

- Blue Sky God (Stormy Atlantic) was trained by Barclay Tagg, but is now under the care of Kiaran McLaughlin; the Form says he's headed for Dubai, I guess to follow that time-proven path to Kentucky. He was a $100,000 purcahse at Timonium in May. He's out of a stakes winning mare by Godmother, a winless Seattle Slew stallion named Show Em Slew. Blue Sky God is inbred 3x3 to Seattle Slew.