Robin Goodfellow’s racing tips: Best bets for Thursday, September 21
Mail Sport's racing expert Robin Goodfellow delivers his tips for Thursday's meetings at Yarmouth, Chelmsford City, Ayr and Pontefract.
Month: September 2023
Giant Mischief Back With A Vengeance at Churchill
8th-Churchill Downs, $132,590, Alw (NW2X), Opt. Clm ($125,000), 9-20, 3yo, 6f, 1:09.15, ft, 2 3/4 lengths.
GIANT MISCHIEF (c, 3, Into Mischief–Vertical Oak {MGSW, $773,095}, by Giant Oak) made a triumphant return off a near seven-month absence, landing this stakes-quality sprint in sharp fashion. The 7-5 favorite was off fairly and was hustled along early, but did not quite have speed enough to head them off and settled on the heels of the leaders to the turn. Angled away from the inside and into the four path going ominously well at the five-sixteenths pole, the $475,000 Keeneland September grad swept to the lead with a furlong and a half to race and kicked home to score by an impressive 2 3/4 lengths over fellow comebacker Two Eagles River (Cloud Computing). A debut winner at Horseshoe Indianapolis this time last year, Giant Mischief outgamed future GI Woody Stephens S. hero and 'TDN Rising Star' Arabian Lion (Justify) in a seven-furlong allowance at Keeneland on Breeders' Cup Friday. A troubled-trip second as the 4-5 choice in the Dec. 17 Springboard Mile S. at Remington, the bay was a latest sixth in a sloppy-track renewal of the GII Rebel S. at Oaklawn Feb. 25. The winner's dual graded stakes-winning dam was a acquired for $700,000 with this colt in utero at the 2019 Keeneland November Sale and is also the dam of a yearling Curlin filly and a weanling colt by Quality Road. Vertical Oak, a daughter of MSW Vertical Vision (Pollard's Vision), was covered by Into Mischief this season. Sales history: $475,000 Ylg '21 KEESEP. Lifetime Record: SP, 5-3-1-0, $285,320. Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by FanDuel TV.
O-Spendthrift Farm LLC, Steve Landers Racing LLC, M Schwartz, M Dubb, Ten Strike Racing, J Bakke., Titletown Racing Stables, Kueber Racing, LLC, Big Easy Racing LLC, Winners Win, M Caruso & Stonestreet Stables LLC; B-Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings LLC (KY); T-Brad H Cox.
#5 Giant Mischief wins off a 6-month layoff in R8 at Churchill Downs under @Tyler_Gaff for trainer @bradcoxracing and owners @spendthriftfarm and Steve Landers!
#TwinSpiresReplay pic.twitter.com/eGroVLMIKG
— TwinSpires Racing
(@TwinSpires) September 20, 2023
The post Giant Mischief Back With A Vengeance at Churchill appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.
Wade Jost Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast To Tell The Story Of Carson’s Run
When Carson's Run (Cupid) won the GI bet365 Summer S. at Woodbine Racetrack this past weekend, earning a trip to the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita, the story was bigger than one horse and one race.
The 2-year-old chestnut colt is named for the 31-year-old son of Wade Jost, who bought into the horse from his classmate at the United States Military Academy, Terry Finley, thorough West Point Thoroughbreds.
Carson Jost continues to battle Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome. The story might sound familiar, as Cody's Wish (Curlin) is named in honor of Cody Dorman, who also suffers from the rare genetic disorder.
To learn more about Carson Jost and this colt, Wade Jost was the Green Group Guest of the Week on this week's TDN Writers' Rooom podcast presented by Keeneland.
“It's been emotional, as my voice breaks right now,” Jost said. “We just wanted to do something for Carson. He's never walked and this is an opportunity to give him some focus, give him some limelight. Terry and I have been talking for over a decade about this, the possibility of doing something in his honor. The timing was just right. Carson just turned 31. He wasn't supposed to be with us and was supposed to have passed early in life. But mainly because of all the love he gets from his mother, who has constantly taken care of him, he is still with us.”
The Josts have yet to see Carson's Run compete live, but a trip to the Breeders' Cup and a meeting with the Dorman family is a possibility.
“It sounds like both Cody's Wish and Carson's Run may be at the Breeders' Cup,” Jost said. “If so, we'd love to get together with the Dormans. We'll talk about it after we get through some more races here. It's good that the Breeders' Cup is at Santa Anita on the West Coast, given that we live in Washington State. It may still be tough. Carson has a lot of issues, one of which is a very low immune system. So with everything going on right now, with all the viruses going on in the world, it may be tough to get them down there, but we'll see.”
Jost's military career included fighting in the Gulf War. An inordinate number of people who fought in that war went on to have children born with disabilities. Could that be what happened with Carson?
“The bottom line is we don't know,” Jost said. “But yes, the possibility exists. I know it definitely did for some that have been diagnosed. By and large, this chromosomal disorder is overwhelmingly a matter of one of the two parents carrying it in their chromosomes. But it just hadn't affected them until they had offspring. That didn't happen with my wife and I. So we don't know. Carson was doing studies. We were doing studies for three years after he was born. And we got to a point where the studies got to be too frequent. The blood that they drew, the tests that they did, and we finally just decided that it was time to move on with life and not put him through any more of that rigor. Nothing was ever conclusive for us.”
Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Retired Racehorse Project, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, WinStar Farm, XBTV.com, Lane's End and West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Zoe Cadman, Bill Finley and Randy Moss delved into another big weekend in North America for trainer Charlie Appleby, who won the GI Woodbine Mile S. and the GIII Jockey Club Oaks Invitational S. Cadman gave an update on the Keeneland September Sale and the trio looked ahead to Saturday's GI Pennsylvania Derby and the GI Cotillion S. at Parx. There was also a spirited debate about whether or not running a horse too often or on short rest could be a contributing factor when it comes to breakdowns. Moss said yes. Finley said no.
To watch the Writers' Room, click here. To view the show as a podcast, click here.
The post Wade Jost Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast To Tell The Story Of Carson’s Run appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.
View From The Eighth Pole: Sprinting Off To The Breeding Shed
The American Graded Stakes Committee is not doing the Thoroughbred breed any favors.
As I've written before, when the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association in the early 1970s undertook the worthwhile mission of ranking the best races with a Grade 1, Grade 2, or Grade 3 designation, there was not a single race at less than one mile for horses 3-year-olds and up among the 63 contests given Grade 1 status. To repeat: There were zero Grade 1 sprints for horses aged 3 and up.
The seven-furlong Vosburgh, a Grade 2 race when grading began in 1973, was elevated to Grade 1 status in 1980 – the only sprint for horses 3 & up rated at the highest level by the committee.
In 2022, 17 sprints (races under one mile for 3 & up runners) received Grade 1 status from the committee among the 98 total Grade 1 races. By comparison, France has three Group 1 sprints, Great Britain six, Ireland one, and Japan two among major racing countries in the Northern Hemisphere. The U.S. has more Grade 1 sprints that those four countries combined.
Winning a Grade 1 race greatly enhances a male horse's opportunity to stand at stud. It's not automatic, especially if that Grade 1 sprint victory came on turf, but it's a seal of approval from the group that determines which races are the most important in this country.
By increasing the number of Grade 1 sprint races, the committee is de facto blessing stallion farms to stand more sprinters at stud. But is that necessarily a bad thing?
This is a bit of a chicken and egg question. Are stallion farms standing more sprinters because that's what commercial breeders want, or is it because that's what yearling buyers are looking for, and mare owners are merely responding to market demand? And are those buyers, especially those shopping for colts, eyeing yearlings that look fast and racy in hopes of winning a Grade 1 sprint to secure that next stallion deal? And how much of a role do racing secretaries play in this? If they're mainly writing races for sprinters…well, that's what owners and trainers will buy.
Emphasizing sprint speed over stamina or soundness is just one area where the Graded Stakes Committee has fallen short.
There are far too many Grade 1 races restricted to 2-year-olds (15 in 2022, including seven for fillies) and 3-year-olds (27 in 2022, including 12 for fillies). The opportunity to win Grade 1 races at 2 or 3 encourages owners of these horses to rush them off to stud, instead of showing that they can prove themselves against older runners over a period of time and at longer distances. France and Great Britain each have five Group 1 races for 2-year-olds, while Ireland and Japan have three each.
In my opinion, the only Grade 1 races for 2-year-olds should be at the Breeders' Cup: the Juvenile, Juvenile Fillies, Juvenile Turf, and Juvenile Fillies Turf.
A similar restructuring should happen for 3-year-olds. Only the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes should be Grade 1. All of the pre-Triple Crown races for 3-year-olds are run within a few weeks of each other, allowing horsemen to pick and choose to find the easiest path to Grade 1 success. Downgrade them all to Grade 2. You could make an argument that the Travers and/or Haskell still qualify as Grade 1, but those races are deep into the racing season when 3-year-olds should be ready to take on older runners. And there should be no Grade 1 sprints for 3-year-olds.
This weekend, Parx Racing will offer two Grade 1 races restricted to 3-year-olds, the Pennsylvania Derby and the Cotillion for fillies. Later in the year, the Hollywood Derby at Del Mar, and the Malibu and La Brea at Santa Anita, are restricted to 3-year-olds. No major racing country in the rest of the world runs these restricted races so late in the season. None of those should be Grade 1, in my opinion.
So if this is a problem, what is the solution?
For starters, the committee members would be well served to take their heads out of their data-filled notebooks for a few minutes and have a genuine discussion about whether their actions are helping or hurting the breed. Because so many American Graded Stakes Committee members are active in the commercial breeding market, which is quite successful based on the hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions at recent yearling sales, I find it doubtful they will see any problems through their rose-colored glasses. (Original Graded Stakes Committee members in the 1970s, incidentally, were less engaged in the commercial market.)
But should profits from stud fees and yearling sales be the determining factor in whether the Thoroughbred breed itself is going in the right or wrong direction? No.
It's been 50 years since the Graded Stakes Committee was formed. In the mid-1970s, runners averaged over 10 starts per year. Average starts per runner now stands at six. It's not a good trend line.
Like anything in racing, the reasons for horses today having compacted careers with fewer starts over shorter distances is multi-factorial. Some things will be difficult if not impossible to change. That's not true of the Graded Stakes Committee. All it takes is some conviction and leadership.
That's my view from the eighth pole.
The post View From The Eighth Pole: Sprinting Off To The Breeding Shed appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
