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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

IT'S THE HORSE, STUPID

**(Great footage alert: Readers have to check out the RSS TBA feeder button (below the list of my fellow Bloggers). The feeder gives you a short brief on all the recent posts. Have a look at the footage of Invaser eating hay and Ken McPeek's discussion about the Birdblog. Also, scroll further down and find the NIATROSS footage from his time trial in 1980, when he hits the wire the crowd noise is stunning. Okay, it's harness racing but he was a super horse, I went to see him at Greenwood once)

Today's stuff...

AND REPEAT

Yep, tracks are working hard to protect THE stars of the show – look at the Woodbine leaders with the move to Polytrack and its huge contributions (along with other local horsemen’s groups) to LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Society.
There is work to be done however and perhaps promoting THE stars of the racing game (horses, stupid!) through the media is a good idea - attract people to the next possible star, get them acquainted with horse names – drill them into their heads. Bring the fans out to see the horses.
A super opinion piece in the Blood-Horse appeared this week:
http://opinions.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=37652

SCARY SCARY

A write-up in the THOROUGHBRED TIMES Daily News this morning on the continuing tweaking of Turfway Park’s Polytrack (Woodbine may have to do the same very soon) suggests that management at the Kentucky track threatened jockeys who did not want to ride on the troubled surface. Eeks.
http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/tt_today/TodayPortal/open-issue.aspx?a=FMDKD022107

Woodbine has had similar problems with the ‘inmates trying to run the asylum' scenario to the point that Woodbine chief David Willmot had stern conversations with the jocks last fall when then continued to try and cancel races because of wind/cold temps.
Dicey issue here – make them ride? Don’t make them ride? What is safe and what is not? Hmmmm.

EDDIE LOOKS READY

Canadian-bred READY EDDIE figures to be second-favourite in the 9th at Philly Park today, a 1 mile allowance race for $31,000. The son of More Than Ready – Authentic Deed, by Alydeed appears to be sitting on his 3rd career win however. A 2-time winner in 18 starts, Eddie is making his first start for trainer Mike Pino (19% win rate with newcomers to his barn) and the gelding is moving out to 1 mile (6-1-2-1 at the distance).

Bred by Gail Wood, Alex Brancato and Belvedere Farm, consider Ready Eddie today’s selection on an otherwise quiet Wednesday. (See yesterday’s posts for more Wednesday entrants).

Pedigree buffs might be intrigued by Darley Stud’s PARTY JONES (by the same sire as Smarty Jones), a beginner at Tampa today (9th race). By Elusive Quality, the colt is out of Group 3 winner Spanish Falls, a half-sister to Group 1 winners BALLIGARRY (Canadian International), STARBOROUGH and ARISTOTLE. Debuts in a dirt sprint which is weird but I’m curious as to what this guy looks like.

Um, champion SHILLELAGH SLEW has had just that one workout a few weeks back, same goes for stakes winner SEALY HILL. Let’s hope these guys get geared up again or have landed at Woodbine by now.

1 Comments:

  • At 11:30 AM, Blogger Patrick J Patten said…

    Thanks for the RSS shoutout. The group feed is really great, I probably check 5 times a day. There's always something going on in horse racing.

     

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