Swiss Skydiver | Horse Racing Free Tips

Robby Albarado, Luis Saez Tied In Jockey Of The Week Voting

With two extraordinary riding performances during the week of Sept. 28 thru Oct. 4, the Jockey of the Week panel of judges could not separate the riding achievements of veteran Robby Albarado and Luis Saez. The two riders tied for votes creating two Jockeys of the Week for the first time. The panel is comprised of racing industry experts. This award is for jockeys who are members of the Jockeys' Guild, the organization which represents more than 950 active riders in the United States as well as retired and permanently disabled jockeys.

Robby Albarado's riding skills were on full display in the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes aboard the filly Swiss Skydiver. The filly was the beneficiary of a quick decision by Albarado that helped propel her to the lead leaving the backstretch. From there she fought off a seemingly relentless challenge from Kentucky Derby winner Authentic.

Commenting on his ride, Albarado said: “I had an opportunity, a split second to take advantage of the rail because Johnny (Velazquez on Authentic) was sitting off the fence there. I made a conscience decision on the backside. Do I make the move now or do I wait to see if they come to me?”

Albarado made the move and into the history books. Swiss Skydiver became just the 6th filly to win the 1-3/16-mile classic race for 3-year-olds.

“It was a genius move by Robby coming up the fence,” said Ken McPeek, the trainer of Swiss Skydiver.

Fall Stars Weekend at Keeneland featured 10 graded stakes and Luis Saez won five for four different trainers. His wins included the Grade 1 Darley Alcibiades aboard Simply Ravishing for Ken McPeek, and the Grade 1 Claiborne Breeders' Futurity with Essential Quality for Brad Cox. Saez became the 10th jockey to sweep the Alcibiades and Breeders' Futurity in the same year. His other stakes wins included the Grade 1 Juddmonte Spinster with Valiance for Todd Pletcher, the Grade 2 Woodford Stakes Presented by TVG on Leinster for Rusty Arnold and the Grade 2 Bourbon Stakes with Mutasaabeq for Todd Pletcher.

Saez's weekly stats were 22-9-3-3 for a win percentage of 41 percent, an in-the-money percentage of 68 percent, and total purses of $1,182,436 for leading money-earner honors.

Albarado and Saez out-polled fellow riders Junior Alvarado who won four stakes at Belmont Park, three of which were graded, Daniel Centeno with two stakes wins at Pimlico and Jose L. Ortiz with three graded stakes wins at Belmont Park.

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Bloodlines Presented By Iowa Thoroughbred Breeders And Owners Association: A Banner Weekend For Fillies

Around the world this weekend, fillies have made life hard on the colts. Notably, here at home in the States, the Daredevil filly Swiss Skydiver refused to yield to the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby winner Authentic (Into Mischief) in the Preakness Stakes on Oct. 3.

At Longchamp in France, a pair of mares won Group 1 races against their male competition. In the 2 1/2-mile Prix du Cadran, the 5-year-old Princess Zoe caught the longtime leader Alkuin close to the finish and won the staying laurels in Europe. In the seven-furlong Prix de la Foret, the 6-year-old One Master (Fastnet Rock) won this important race for the third time. She was bred in England by Lael Stable, which also campaigns the talented racer.

The German-bred Princess Zoe is a daughter of the Montjeu stallion Jukebox Jury. The sire won the G2 Royal Lodge Stakes at Ascot as a 2-year-old, then progressed to win the G2 Jockey Club Stakes at Newmarket, the G2 Prix Kergorlay at Deauville, the G1 Irish St. Leger at the Curragh, and the G1 Preis von Europa at Cologne. The gray went to stud in Germany at Gestut Etzean in 2013, where Princess Zoe came from a mating in the stallion's second season of breeding, foals of 2015. In 2018, Jukebox Jury was transferred to Ireland and stands at Burgage Stud in County Carlow.

Daredevil, the sire of multiple Grade 1 winner Swiss Skydiver, has had a similar pattern at stud. The son of More Than Ready entered stud at WinStar Farm in 2016, then before his stock reached the races, was sold to the Jockey Club of Turkey and transferred to their studs in Eastern Europe, along with Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver.

Swiss Skydiver, along with G1 Kentucky Oaks winner Shedaresthedevil, are members of the first crop of racers by Daredevil, and they have raised his profile among breeders in Turkey and elsewhere. According to press reports out of Turkey, there is considerable interest in Daredevil from breeders around the world, and he may be put to use as a dual-hemisphere stallion.

The dam of Swiss Skydiver, the Johannesburg mare Expo Gold, has been added to the Keeneland November sale. The 12-year-old mare, in foal to first-year sire Catholic Boy (More Than Ready), will sell on the first day of the November sale as part of the Taylor Made consignment. In addition, two half-sisters to Swiss Skydiver have been consigned to the Keeneland November auction: the stakes-placed Miss Hot Legs, who is by Verrazano, a son of More Than Ready, like Daredevil and Catholic Boy, will be consigned by South Point Sales, agent, in foal to Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist; and Is It Gold (Indygo Shiner), will be offered as a broodmare prospect by Hunter Valley Farm, agent.

More Than Ready himself had a massively successful weekend, as the sire of Uni, winner of the G1 First Lady Stakes, and as the broodmare sire of Simply Ravishing (Laoban), the winner of the G1 Alcibiades Stakes.

The final filly who put the boys in their place was the Japanese-bred Gran Alegria, a daughter of the great sire Deep Impact. She shares a sire with the 3-year-old Contrail, who will attempt to win his country's Triple Crown after victories in the Satsuki Sho (2,000 Guineas) and Tokyo Yushun (Japan Derby).

In contrast to the classic winner Contrail, the 4-year-old Gran Alegria tackled colts in the G1 Sprinters Stakes at Nakayama over 1,200 meters on turf. Lagging behind all but one of her competitors, Gran Alegria went outside all the racers in front of her as she turned on a stretch finish that would have made Winx blush.

Turning into the stretch with only one competitor behind her, Gran Alegria swept past them all to win by two lengths in 1:08.3. It is an exhibition worth watching and a link to the race video is available on the website of Horse Racing in Japan.

This fast bay filly is out of Breeders' Cup Juvenile Filly Turf winner Tapitsfly (Tapit), who sold to Katsumi Yoshida for $1.85 million at the 2012 Fasig-Tipton November sale. A two-time G1 winner, Tapitsfly produced Gran Alegria as her first named foal, and the Sprinters Stakes winner is her dam's only surviving offspring. Tragically, Tapitsfly died foaling another Deep Impact foal on Mar. 2, 2018.

Some of the bravest and fleetest of our racers, mares put their lives into producing the next generation of racing stock. On the course and in the paddocks, they deserve our salute.

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View From The Eighth Pole: The Impossible Dream

Well, we got through it.

The 2020 Triple Crown was different, that's for sure.

A Belmont Stakes that began the series, not at its traditional mile and a half but at a truncated nine furlongs around one turn.

A Kentucky Derby run in eerie silence on the first Saturday in September in a city on edge for months because of growing racial tensions.

A lost in the shuffle Preakness Stakes that brought the series to an end in early October on a day when tracks in New York and Kentucky were showcasing horses gearing up for the autumn Breeders' Cup world championships.

It was unprecedented. It was beautiful. It was 2020 personified.

The stars of this Triple Crown in the year of the coronavirus pandemic were, as always, those magnificent Thoroughbreds.

The New York-bred Tiz the Law demonstrating his dominance at Belmont Park for octogenarian Barclay Tagg and the everyman Sackatoga Stable partners, proving that age is just a number when it comes to training a racehorse.

The Derby showed us, once again, why they run the race.

While Tiz the Law looked unbeatable on paper, having gone on after the Belmont to win the Travers Stakes over the same mile and a quarter distance, he hadn't yet taken on the aces from the Bob Baffert Travel Team. Sure, Nadal was retired, Charlatan had been sidelined with an injury and Eight Rings, Cezanne and Uncle Chuck just weren't up to to the task at this stage of their careers, but the white-haired wonder still had the once-beaten Into Mischief colt Authentic and the insurgent Thousand Words in his arsenal. Well, scratch the latter…literally…just minutes before the Derby after acting up in the saddling paddock.

Authentic proved just that, denying Tiz the Law in the Run for the Roses and looking like a cinch to repeat in the Preakness a month later – especially after the Belmont winner's connections decided to sit this one out. A cinch, at least until forgotten rider Robby Albarado seized the moment to resurrect his career, boldly sending the gallant filly Swiss Skydiver to take on Authentic for a throwdown in the final three-eighths of a mile the likes of which we haven't seen at Old Hilltop since Sunday Silence and Easy Goer were hip to hip in that glorious Preakness of 1989. Or maybe since Albarado, aboard Curlin, engaged and defeated Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense in another memorable running of the Preakness in 2007.

Trainer Kenny McPeek calls this Daredevil filly – one he bought for just $35,000 on day nine of the Keeneland September Yearling Sale – a throwback. Sure nuff, she is. Her past performances read like the announcements echoing through a train station: Tampa, New Orleans, Miami, Hot Springs, Arcadia, Lexington, Saratoga Springs, Louisville, Baltimore.

All aboard.

This was David beating Goliath, Main Street outperforming Wall Street. It wasn't just a filly against colts, it was a victory for the little guys against the conglomerates. Likewise, Belmont winner Tiz the Law came from an ownership group that won all of four races last year from a five-horse stable.

But this game isn't about numbers, at least not for everyone. It's about dreams. Seemingly impossible dreams. And when they come true, as Don Quixote said, the world will be better for this.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

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Swiss Skydiver Vaults To Third Position In NTRA Top 3-Year-Old Poll

Peter Callahan's Swiss Skydiver made history this past weekend when she became just the sixth filly to capture the Preakness Stakes, a stirring effort that allowed the daughter of Daredevil to move up the ranks in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) Top 3-Year-Old Poll.

Trained by Kenny McPeek, Swiss Skydiver came into the 1 3/16-miles Preakness off a runner-up effort in the September 4 Kentucky Oaks and had won four other graded races this season, including the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes. The chestnut filly outdueled Kentucky Derby winner Authentic by a neck in the Preakness to assert herself as the leader of the sophomore filly ranks, earning 11 first-place votes and 359 points to move up to third overall in the poll.

Authentic, who was 9 ¾ lengths clear of third-place finisher Jesus' Team, lost the final leg of the 2020 Triple Crown but still holds the top spot in the poll with 18 first-place votes and 378 points. Belmont and Travers Stakes winner Tiz the Law is second with 14 first-place votes and 369 points while Grade 2 winner Art Collector (249 points) dropped one spot to fourth, just behind Swiss Skydiver.

Grade 1 winner Honor A. P., who has been retired to stud, remains fifth with 155 points followed by fellow top-level winner Gamine (128 points) and Kentucky Oaks winner Shedaresthedevil (112) in seventh. Max Player (110 points) ranks eighth while Thousand Words (52) and Jesus' Team (45) complete the top 10.

Authentic's older stablemate Improbable remains out front in the NTRA Top Thoroughbred Poll with 34 first-place votes and 401 points. The son of City Zip has won three straight Grade 1 contests with his latest triumph coming in the September 26 Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita Park.

Champion Maximum Security, runner-up in the Awesome Again Stakes, remains second with 2 first-place votes and 303 points. Tom's d'Etat (2 first-place votes, 249 points) is third followed by multiple Grade 1 winner Vekoma (2 first-place votes, 245 points) and champion Monomoy Girl (1 first-place vote, 213 points).

Multiple graded stakes winner By My Standards remains sixth with 160 points while Authentic (127 points) moves up to seventh – the highest ranking sophomore on the Top Thoroughbred Poll. Tiz the Law (115 points) is eighth followed by Swiss Skydiver (114) and multiple Grade 1 winner Rushing Fall (75).

The NTRA Top Thoroughbred polls are the sport's most comprehensive surveys of experts. Every week eligible journalists and broadcasters cast votes for their top 10 horses, with points awarded on a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis. All horses that have raced in the U.S., are in training in the U.S., or are known to be pointing to a major event in the U.S. are eligible for the NTRA Top Thoroughbred Poll. Voting in both the Top Three-Year-Old Poll and the Top Thoroughbred Poll is scheduled to be conducted through the conclusion of the Breeders' Cup in November.

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