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Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Saratoga Notes

Another winner, on Monday, for Anthony Dutrow who, as noted yesterday, is making the most of limited opportunities at the meet.  Sheer Drama (2nd race, $11.00) gave him a record of 16-5-3-2.  By the way, the NYRA website has up to date trainer stats these days, with a little interactivity too. There you can see Dutrow's upcoming entries, which include a MTO horse on Wednesday, and a class dropping Native Wave who looks interesting in that spot on Thursday.  Will try and circle back to that.  Sheer Drama, making his first start on a fast track around two turns, is by Burning Roma, a Rubiano stallion currently standing in Florida for $1,000, out of quite a productive mare in Riveting Drama (Notebook). She's had at least eight previous winners, according to Pedigree Query, including the BC Sprint winner Big Drama, and the sprint-stakes winning Little Drama (also by Burning Roma).  Looking at a sampling of the races that her output has won, it seems as if Sheer Drama may have outrun his pedigree by winning at a mile and an eighth.

Another trainer whose horses seem quite sharp of late is Barclay Tagg.  Don't see as much of him as we did just a few years ago; just 80 starters coming on the year coming into Monday.  Only three winners from 19 starters this meet, but those have all come in his last ten starts, and include Caroline Thomas, who just missed in the Lake Placid on Sunday (and got put up via dq).  On Monday, Tagg won the 4th with Hot Tempo ($6); and in the 8th, his Judy G looked ready to pounce at 10-1 turning for home, but was hopelessly thwarted in an effort to find a seam and settled for 5th.  Horse and trainer well worth following.  He has nothing entered through Friday other than an AE in the finale that day.

Graham Motion (27-3-3-6) has had a rough meet, but took the 9th with She's Not Lazy ($39.20), one of the longshots that contributed to a Pick Six carryover coming up on Wednesday.   She's Not Lazy is a three-year old daughter of Tiznow, out of an winless Gone West mare who's a half to the dam of last year's Oaks winner Believe You Can; and this is also the distaff family of the multiple graded grass stakes winner Rush Bay.

The carryover was a foregone conclusion by Monday's 10th, but Lumineuse put the icing on a difficult day with an upset at 22-1.  It was the old Christophe Clement to Patrick Quick trainer move.  I saw Andy Serling and some guy named Attenberg going off on Twitter about how unlikely a winner this horse was.  But Lumineuse is a son of North Light (Danehill), "Canada's #1 Turf Sire in 2012," out of a Silver Deputy half-sister to the multiple (restricted/state-bred) grass stakes winner You Go West Girl; and her second dam is the multiple graded grass stakes winner Careless Heiress.  So, she had every right to improve on grass.

But no, I didn't have her either.

6 Comments:

Sal Carcia said...

I love it when you have a winner and someone tells you the horse was still a bad pick. I picked a $40 maiden winner one time and handicapper friend said he saw the other jockeys holding back. Well, the horse went on to be a stakes winner. I am just glad the mutuel machines don't hold these opinions too.

Andy said...

Lumineuse had already run on turf...and run poorly at even money.

Alan Mann said...

He did run poorly in his turf debut, but that was off a six month layoff, showed speed and faded after chasing a decent horse in Therapy. Deserved to be the price he was, especially after burning so much money, but IMO not as astounding as some made it out to be.

Andy said...

He's a she. Therapy is hardly a decent horse, especially in relation to Monday's field. She was also switching from one of the best trainers in the game to a trainer with a woefully bad long-term winning percentage.

Good luck finding a serious player, regardless of how they look at a race, that found that horse even mildly interesting before the race....yet she not only won, she won easily. It's racing, goofy stuff happens.

Unknown said...

>>He's a she.

Ugh, you got me on a technicality. :-)

Anonymous said...

Are you serious, Andy? Lumineuse's one grass race was off a layoff without lasix where from the rail she chased a fast pace and had trouble. Her opponents where formless or without speed and she had the best speed figures in the field albeit on dirt and within a separate form cycle. All things considered she was a big overlay.