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Danny Gargan Joins the TDN Writers’ Room

The GII Fountain of Youth S. may have received a few key scratches that diminished the overall quality of the field, but Danny Gargan won't let that take anything away from the victory earned by his trainee Dornoch (Good Magic). As this week's Green Group Guest of the Week on the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland, Gargan recapped Saturday's Fountain of Youth score and made a case for why we still haven't seen the best from Dornoch.

“We've just gotta get someone fast enough to get next to him,” Gargan explained. “If someone will get next to him, you're going to see a fast horse. I mean, he does explode working. But Luis [Saez] was just sitting there playing around. He'll wait on competition because he wants to play. He's a big boy and wants the competition.”

While the goal was originally for Dornoch to get some experience coming from behind horses, the game plan changed after a late scratch from Todd Pletcher trainee Speak Easy (Constitution), who got loose behind the gate. Gargan had to break out his running shoes to get to Saez before the horses started loading.

“Right where the stand is where they do the interviews and they're on TV, I ran down to the track where the horses walk on and Luis was right around that area. We had to have a conversation again, but he knew what we wanted at that stage. He's a pretty smart kid…I had to change our game plan completely because I didn't want to be behind one of those horses and have them get in our way. So we went ahead and decided to just go to the lead.”

The plan was a success as Dornoch, who is a full-brother to last year's GI Kentucky Derby winner Mage, wired a field of five and earned 50 points on the road to the Kentucky Derby. Gargan has said that he is considering either the GI Florida Derby or the GI Blue Grass S. for the colt's next start. On the show, he reported that he's leaning toward the Blue Grass, but should have a final decision at some point later next week.

Until then, he plans to soak up the experience of the Derby trail. A native of Louisville, Gargan has been to the Kentucky Derby once before in 2019 with Tax (Arch), who finished fourteenth, but this time around he said his outlook is a bit different.

“We're just going to enjoy where we're at right now,” Gargan said. “We're lucky enough that we didn't have to run that hard to get the points. We're already probably in the race. I believe we have a horse that, if we get him in the gate on the first Saturday in May, he'd have a chance to win it. So it's a totally different ballpark and it's a fun thing to be a part of. Hopefully we get lucky and we're there.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is sponsored by Coolmore's Epicenter, WinStar Farm's Global Campaign, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, 1/ST Racing, West Point Thoroughbreds and XBTV.com, the team of Randy Moss, Zoe Cadman and T.D. Thornton reviewed all the major Kentucky Derby and Oaks prep races from coast to coast and questioned the implications the many scratches might have had on the weekend's results. They also took a look at the new Tapeta track at Santa Anita, as well as the announcement of 1/ST's new racing series and the GI Preakness S. purse increase.

Click here to watch the show.

Click here for the audio-only version.

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Week in Review: Off-Lasix 3YOs Have Now Won 25% of This Year’s Derby Preps

Besides solidifying his status as a top-tier Triple Crown threat, Saturday's win by Known Agenda (Curlin) in the GI Curlin Florida Derby bolstered the overall case that the phase-out of Lasix in this year's series of GI Kentucky Derby preps seems to be having no adverse effect on performance.

Through 20 races in North America since Jan. 1 that have awarded Derby qualifying points, horses giving up Lasix after receiving it in their prior start have won five of those races. Seven others have finished second, an impressive strike rate that equates to off-Lasix horses running first or second in 60% of those 20 stakes.

The sample–admittedly small, but growing–is comprised of 52 total starters. The winners were Known Agenda in the Florida Derby, Helium (Ironicus) in the GII Tampa Bay Derby, Candy Man Rocket (Candy Ride {Arg}) in the GIII Sam F. Davis S., Hush of a Storm (Creative Cause) in the John Battaglia Memorial S., and Capo Kane (Street Sense) in the Jerome S.

It should also be noted with an asterisk that Concert Tour (Street Sense) won the GII San Vicente S. coming off Lasix, but that key Santa Anita prep race does not award Derby qualifying points.

This year will mark the first season in which all three Triple Crown races will be conducted Lasix-free, and the majority of prep stakes for the Derby did not permit Lasix. (In the qualifying races that did permit Lasix, like the Springboard Mile S. back in December, horses could not earn points for their placings if they ran on the drug.)

Known Agenda began his career Lasix-free as a 2-year-old in New York, and he beat highly rated Greatest Honour (Tapit) back in November without the use of any race-day anti-bleeding medication. But his form slipped after that–he ran third, beaten nine lengths, in the GII Remsen S., then was the beaten favorite when fifth in the Davis S. at Tampa.

For a Feb. 26 allowance confidence-builder at Gulfstream, trainer Todd Pletcher added both blinkers and Lasix (which is permitted in non-stakes races for 3-year-olds in Florida). Known Agenda attacked with metronomic precision, then poured it on in deep stretch to win by 11 commanding lengths. The drop in class, the addition of blinkers, and the use of Lasix for the first time all likely contributed to a vastly improved performance. But it was impossible to tease out which of those factors had the most impact.

Conventional handicapping wisdom shaped by decades of Lasix usage in North American racing suggested that coming off of Lasix while stepping up to Grade I company after an allowance win by double-digit lengths the first time on that drug might not be an advantageous angle.

But as we are now seeing, convention might as well get tossed out the window, because these off-Lasix horses as an aggregate don't seem to be suffering marked declines in performance.

Known Agenda improved to a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 94, a leap of 12 points. Four of the other off-Lasix sophomore stakes winners mentioned above also improved their Beyers when foregoing Lasix: Hush of a Storm (+12), Capo Kane (+10), Helium (+9) and Concert Tour (+6). The only off-Lasix winner to decline in terms of Beyers was Candy Man Rocket (-2).

In the interest of fairness, four other Florida Derby starters on Saturday came off Lasix after using it last time out. They ran second, fifth, sixth and ninth. So yes, for some of those horses the negative performance implications of not racing on Lasix might have been more pronounced.

Prior to the entire field not racing on Lasix on Saturday, you have to go all the way back to 2012 to find the last time a Florida Derby entrant didn't race on Lasix (Reveron, beaten just a length at 31-1 odds). Before that only one other horse in the 21st Century ran Lasix-free in the Florida Derby (an off-the-board long shot in 2001).

And we'll wrap up this discussion with a little quiz: Prior to Known Agenda, can you name the last horse to cross the Florida Derby finish wire first while running Lasix-free?

The answer is Lil's Lad in the 1998 edition. He was the only horse in that year's Florida Derby not racing on Lasix, but he got disqualified from the victory for causing interference.

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Oregon Fairs Circuit ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ About Racing This Summer

Regulators and stakeholders in Oregon are making tentative plans for the state's four-track fairs circuit to be back in action in this summer after getting cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

But Oregon Racing Commission (ORC) executive director Jack McGrail said during a Feb. 18 meeting he expects those venues will need to be supported by some forms of outside funding in order to conduct mixed Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse meets in 2021.

“I'm happy to report that the larger takeaway is that the fairs really do want to run this year,” McGrail said while recapping the highlights of a recent conference call among industry stakeholders. “They are cautiously optimistic that with protocols in place and some improvements in the overall COVID numbers they'll be able to put on racing.”

The Eastern Oregon Livestock Show meet in Union traditionally kicks off the summer fairs circuit in June. Crooked River Roundup in Prineville, which races at night and generally attracts the largest handles and average attendances in Oregon, races in July. Tillamook County Fair in Tillamook (August) and Harney County Fair in Burns (September) round out the circuit.

Grants Pass Downs, which transitioned from a fairs track to being the lone commercial licensee in Oregon last season after the closure of Portland Meadows, will race two extended meets that don't overlap with the fairs, from May through July and September through November.

McGrail said that the concerns of operators were focused on how to keep crowds manageable relative to pandemic restrictions while making sure there would be enough attendees to generate sustainable revenue.

Keeping fans socially distanced in a fairgrounds setting was one issue that came up. Plus the fairs are also primarily staffed by volunteers, who thus far have expressed a health-related reluctance to commit.

McGrail added that the tracks are exploring technologies that would allow fans to place wagers without having to walk up to mutuel windows. But one concern in that area has to do with making sure those bets get counted as on-track wagers, “which is a significant issue, because there's a lot more money and revenue for the operator when they're on-track wagers,” he said.

“These limitations might require that there be an influx of money from sources, whether it's the ORC and/or others, to allow the fairs to run,” McGrail said. “All of the summer fairs are going to need more funding just to operate in this environment.

“But I do applaud the fairs for all of their innovation and commitment to running, and I think it's important to racing in Oregon to keep these fairs going to the extent that we can,” McGrail said.
McGrail said that the next step in the process would be for the fairs to submit financial data to the ORC prior to the Mar. 18 meeting, which is when budgeting issues will be taken up. This will enable the ORC to “review what the commission might be able to offer and what the fairs are requesting,” he said.

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Week in Review: More Clairiere vs. Travel Column Rivalries, Please

Turn the clock back a dozen years and recall when a fledgling filly parlayed a November win in the GII Golden Rod S. into a torrid nine-stakes win streak that culminated in Horse of the Year honors.

That filly, of course, was Rachel Alexandra.

Now it's 2021, and the Fair Grounds annually honors Rachel Alexandra's brief (one win, one second) tenure in New Orleans with a Grade II stakes race in mid-February. Saturday's edition just so happened to feature the one-two fillies from the Nov. 28 Golden Rod S. at Churchill Downs, a race that stood out as the most visually impressive two-turn stakes of 2020 in the juvenile fillies division.

Three months ago, 'TDN Rising Star' Travel Column (Frosted) overcame a slow start and multiple logjams in the stretch to bull past fast-finishing Clairiere (Curlin) in the shadow of the wire. The final clocking of that 1 1/16 miles stakes was .54 seconds faster than Triple Crown-aspiring males ran one race later in the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S., signaling both fillies (separated by only a length) might be worth watching down the road.

Not surprisingly, Travel Column was backed to even-money favoritism in the 3-year-old debut for both rivals in the Rachel Alexandra, while Clairiere went off as the 2-1 second choice. Travel Column, a poised speedstress, broke running from her outside stall and asserted herself near the head of the field with a three-wide bid into the clubhouse turn. Clairiere, comfortable rating from a touch farther off the pace than in previous starts, broke inward from the one hole and hit the gate, so jockey Joe Talamo allowed the bay to settle into stride by her lonesome, eighth and last at the fence.

Travel Column led the main body of the pack while sitting second down the backstretch, six lengths behind a 25-1 breakaway pacemaker who would eventually fade to last. The favorite appeared primed to pounce while getting a gift of a trip, but nemesis Clairiere more arrestingly caught the eye as she began building a wave of momentum five furlongs out with a well-measured uncoiling from the back of the pack that belied her two races of experience.

Rail-running Clairiere inhaled half the field by the time the pack tightened up at the half-mile pole, but Talamo had to tap the brakes a touch over the next furlong because she was momentarily hemmed in. When he cued Clairiere to quicken three-eighths out, her response was instant, and the two shot up the reopened rail on the prowl after Travel Column, who by the midway point on the turn had seized first run on the wilting speed and was obviously the filly to beat.

Turning for home, Talamo expertly vacated the rail and split foes to avoid getting trapped behind the caving pacemaker, then switched back to the fence in upper stretch to keep from running up on the heels of Travel Column. Initially, the body language of the two fillies and the actions of their riders appeared to favor Travel Column, because the even-striding gray had yet to be fully set down by Florent Geroux while Talamo was already imploring Clairiere for more after she had already given plenty.

In fact, Talamo's decision to switch to Clairiere to the outside of Travel Column at the eighth pole initially had a “one lateral move too many” look to it. But when Clairiere clearly saw her target and took off in determined pursuit, it amounted to a fourth distinct move over the course of a prolonged five-furlong drive, a remarkable in-race tactical progression that is unusual for a newly turned 3-year-old filly to accomplish so deftly. And it wasn't like Clairiere was reeling in a tired filly, either. Both finished well, but Clairiere finished better. Her winning margin of a neck was augmented by a confident gallop-out that kept her rival at bay well past the wire.

Clairiere's final time for 1 1/16 miles was 1:45.34. She was initially assigned a provisional 83 Beyer Speed Figure (same number as her Golden Rod second), but by Sunday that Beyer got adjusted upward to an 85. Interestingly, the final eighth for the Rachel Alexandra clocked in at 6.28 seconds, slightly faster than the 6.36 final furlong that undefeated older male Maxfield (Street Sense) ran in the same-distance GIII Mineshaft S. two races earlier on the card.

Clairiere is owned and bred by Stonestreet Stables and trained by Steve Asmussen, the same connections who acquired Rachel Alexandra after her 20 1/4-length dismantling of the 2009 GI Kentucky Oaks field. She then, in succession, won the GI Preakness S., GI Mother Goose S., GI Haskell Invitational S. and GI Woodward S.

Clairiere is now on a path that could very well lead to an Oaks berth. She's certainly bred to cover a distance of ground–both her sire, Curlin, and damsire, Bernardini, were Preakness victors (among other multiple Grade I stakes they won up to 10 furlongs), and her dam, Cavorting, was a MGISW up to nine furlongs for Stonestreet.

Clairiere shouldn't be saddled with expectations of turning into another Rachel Alexandra. But right now she and Travel Column are supplying the sport with something sorely lacking across almost every division–a competitive, evenly matched rivalry that is fun to watch play out from race to race. The 1-2-3 finishers from last November's GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies have yet to start as 3-year-olds, but these two have already hooked up twice in that interim, delivering a spectacular show on both occasions. Here's rooting for another rematch in the near future.

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