ascot aug08
This is a single article. Click HERE to go to the main page.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Dust has settled...

A busy and frantic opening day at Woodbine on April 1 - but there were no fool's to be found. The 2nd and 3rd floors were crowded with people as the windy and bleak weather kept all inside. Wagering of $2.8 million was essentially on par with last year's opening which was two weeks later on the calender.
Emma-Jayne Wilson flew through the first of 168 days with 3 scores - who would have expected anything less? - and there was a fair mix of faves and longshots winning throughout the 10-race card.
Champions Judith's Wild Rush and Wholelottabourbon exhibited their vulnerability at the short distances when unable to keep up to sprint specialist Danieltown, the winner of the Jacques Cartier prep event, the feature of the 10-race card.
Fans must have noticed how well the Mike Doyle trainees performed including 29 to 1 shot Nohoch (Great Gladiator), the winner of the day's 8th race for maiden allowance fillies.
The main track seemed to play fair for speed and closers all day, despite a strong west-to-east wind that started to fade as the afternoon progressed.
Winter-raced trained or raced horses had as much success as the layoff horses on the card but a horse certainly needed to have some element of early speed.
As far as Gulfstream's big day, which featured the Florida Derby. NEIL writes in that he also liked longshot Rehoboth in the nine-furlong test...
"I, too, liked Rehoboth in the Florida Derby. There's nothing worse than betting on a horse you see nothing of and know nothing of till Vic says 'Rehoboth had better go'. I knew I should (not) have bet Frank Gomez, who is 2-for-90 or something equally awful in 2006. I'm glad the unbeaten grass horse is still unbeaten because that means he'll be a great bet-against on Derby day. Great story on Barbaro's trainer in Louisville paper
Barbaro

MILHOUSE reflects on day one of the Woodbine meeting:
An interesting opening day to say the least. We had some favourites and some big prices as well. I think it's safe to say that a majority of the horses just are not ready to run yet. That was especially evident in the first three races where the late pace just colapsed. Good days for Frank The Shank and Emma Wilson. A couple of the allowance races produced some interesting results. Make sure to add Like A Gem to your watch list. Galloped out beautifuly after the race was done. Dave Cotey first time starter (Halo Above Me) had a terrible start and finished well as did Runaway Sunshine. Most overbet horse of the day was Judith's Wild Rush. Yes a Champion and winter raced....but had the one hole and going just 5 furlongs. Can't wait to see what day 2 has in store for us. Jen, keep up the great work with the site. It has been a lot of fun to read!
9:59 PM

Thanks for these insights...keep them coming!

0 Comments:

Post a Comment