The Week in Review | Horse Racing Free Tips

The Week in Review: Charlatan Ran a Huge Race in Saudi Arabia

He did not win Saturday over in Saudi Arabia, but Charlatan (Speightstown) proved that he is undoubtedly the best dirt horse in America. That's how well he ran in his one-length defeat to Mishriff (Ire) (Make Believe {GB}) in the $20-million race.

It was by no means a surprise that Charlatan and Knicks Go (Paynter) got caught up in a speed duel. Both are talented horses with abundant early speed and jockeys Joel Rosario (Knicks Go) and Mike Smith (Charlatan) rode aggressively, perhaps because neither rider wanted to see their rival get off to an uncontested lead in what many assumed was a two-horse race.

No official fractional times for the race are available, only a final time of 1:49.59 for the mile-and-an-eighth. But a hand timing of the race using video timing revealed that the six furlongs went in 1:10.7. Considering that there was no run up to the race, the six-furlong time would be more like 1:09 and change for a comparable race run in the U.S.

That means that Charlatan dueled with Knicks Go through a very fast three-quarters, while Mishriff got the perfect trip, stalking the two leaders from third. And he did so on a track that may have been biased toward outside closers. Speed didn't hold up in any of the dirt races Saturday and all of the winners were well off the rail in the stretch.

Knicks Go, a very good horse, couldn't handle the pressure. He was done on the turn and wound up finishing fourth, beaten 8 1/2 lengths. Not so for Charlatan. He was still battling Mishriff with 100 meters to go in the race and didn't let the other horse get by him until a few jumps before the wire. The pace was fast, Charlatan never got a breather and then he was caught by a horse who had a perfect trip while racing on the best part of the track. This may have been his best race.

“He ran a big race,” trainer Bob Baffert said Sunday morning. “He put away Knicks Go, just ran him down, turned in a gallant effort and it's too bad he got beat. That's a demanding track. The stretch is so long, and he ran hard. It was an exciting race and I would have loved to have won it, but I was afraid of a speed duel between him and Knicks Go. They locked horns after a half-mile and really picked it up the second quarter. But the way he ran, it shows what a brilliant horse he is. He put away a really good horse [in Knicks Go].”

Charlatan's Saudi Cup performance was reminiscent of the 1978 GI Jockey Club Gold Cup, in which Seattle Slew lost after a heroic effort. He dueled with Affirmed and Life's Hope through fractions of 22.60, 45.20 and 1:09.40. The pace finished Affirmed, whose saddle slipped, and Life's Hope, but not Slew. Meanwhile, Exceller had a perfect off-the-pace trip, but Seattle Slew never gave up and lost by just a nose.

That's not to say that Charlatan is another Seattle Slew. He needs to do a lot more before he can be compared to one of the sport's all-time greats. But his effort in the Saudi Cup was nothing short of terrific.

Maximum Security: The Check Is Not in the Mail

Prince Bandar Bin Khalid Al Faisal, the chairman of the Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia, told the audience for the Saudi Cup that he hoped there might be a resolution on the Maximum Security (New Year's Day) case shortly. Because of the indictment of his trainer Jason Servis and the ongoing investigation, owners Gary and Mary West and Coolmore have not received the $10 million that goes to the winner.

Prince Bandar said that he had been informed that a decision on Servis would come in about six weeks. It was an odd position to take since the case figures to wind through the system for months to come and even the U.S. Jockey Club has received no information concerning a rapid resolution to the case. It seems highly unlikely that the Servis matter will conclude any time soon or that the Saudi authorities would have inside information related to when there will be a decision.

The Prince has said that if U.S. authorities determine that Maximum Security raced on performance-enhancing drugs within six months of the 2020 Saudi Cup he will be disqualified. The FBI's investigation into the alleged doping of horses and the subsequent indictments include evidence that Maximum Security did receive SGF-1000 under Servis's care, administered in the hope of performance enhancement.

Jockey Club Gold Cup Is On the Move

As strange as it will seem to have the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup, first run in 1919, held at Saratoga, NYRA might have saved the race by moving it upstate.

The Gold Cup had been run four weeks before the Breeders' Cup Classic, which, until a few years ago, was not a problem. But with trainers more and more determined to space out their horses' races leading up to the Breeders' Cup, the Gold Cup was suffering, failing to attract a quality field over the last few years. It had gotten to the point where the Gold Cup was in jeopardy of losing its Grade I status.

It will now be run eight weeks before the Classic, which should restore it as a major prep for the Breeders' Cup.

NYRA has yet to announce the stakes schedule for the fall meet at Belmont, but it appears that the GI Woodward S., run at Saratoga since 2006, will move into the Gold Cup's old spot on the calendar. That could mean that race will struggle to get top horses. By switching the two races around, NYRA chose to protect the Gold Cup over the Woodward. Considering the history of the race, it's the right call.

Mattress Mack Deserves to be Honored

That Jim McIngvale has opened up his store to those seeking shelter, heat and food in the aftermath of the storms in Houston doesn't really have anything to do with horse racing. But that doesn't mean that the horse racing industry shouldn't honor him. Mattress Mack has repeatedly gone above and beyond when it comes to helping out the people of his favorite city, Houston.

The Eclipse Award of Merit is given to someone who has displayed outstanding lifetime achievement in, and service to, the Thoroughbred industry. That should include people whose work outside of the sport has been exemplary, shining a positive light on racing. That's exactly what Mack has done. There should be an Eclipse Award out there with his name on it.

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Homebreds Are Dominant On This Year’s Derby Trail

The Week in Review by T.D. Thornton

In a departure from recent seasons, homebreds are dominating the GI Kentucky Derby trail through the early portion of the 2021 prep-race season.

In the TDN Derby Top 12 that will be published in the Feb. 2 edition, no fewer than seven of the leading dozen race for the same owners who planned their matings, raised them as foals, and got those colts into the starting gate.

That 7-of-12 ratio is as high a number of homebreds within the Top 12 at any time since I started compiling TDN's Derby rankings back in 2017.

For short-term comparison, using the Top 12 lists that were published the first week of February in each of the last two years, just two homebreds were among the highest-ranked dozen at this point of the 2019 campaign. In 2020, only one homebred made the early-February cut.

The 2021 group of A-list sophomore homebreds is currently topped by 'TDN Rising Star' Essential Quality (Tapit), who just last Thursday secured Eclipse Award honors in the 2-year-old male division for owner/breeder Godolphin. The divisional champ is joined by fellow Godolphin homebred and 'Rising Star' Prevalence (Medaglia d'Oro), plus the Godolphin-bred and owned Proxy (Tapit).

'TDN Rising Star' Caddo River (Hard Spun) is a Shortleaf Stable homebred who is shaping up as the hometown horse to beat in the Arkansas preps. And the colt who finished right behind him in two New York maiden races last fall, the Courtlandt Farms homebred Greatest Honour (Tapit), just muscled his way into Derby relevance at Gulfstream with a 5 3/4-length smash-and-grab score in Saturday's GIII Holy Bull S.

Derby aspirant and 'TDN Rising Star' Mandaloun (Into Mischief) is a Juddmonte homebred, and Highly Motivated (Into Mischief) carries the colors of owner/breeder Klaravich Stables (after going through the auction ring for $240,000 at KEENOV because Klaravich was buying out a partner who co-owned the weanling).

It's tempting to wonder if the early-season prominence of homebreds on the Derby trail is in any way related to the phase-out of Lasix over the past six months and/or how those horses have been managed and trained.

The country's top circuits began prohibiting race-day usage of the drug for 2-year-olds in 2020, as did the Breeders' Cup for its quartet of juvenile stakes. The 2021 Derby will be run Lasix-free, as will most of the “Road to the Derby” stakes preps leading up to it (in exceptions like December's Springboard Mile S. at Remington Park, no qualifying points were awarded to the first-, third, and fourth-place horses because they raced on Lasix).

Over the past decade, Thoroughbred breeders who race their own stock have been among the most vocal proponents of eliminating race-day medication in America. Is there something about how they've raised their horses that is allowing them to reap the rewards of a rollback to Lasix-free racing at the highest levels of the sport?

It's far too early to tell for sure. Right now the data sample is not large enough to distinguish causality from coincidence when it comes to linking the success of homebreds to the decline of Lasix usage.

And in two of the cases of the above-mentioned seven homebreds, that Lasix theory doesn't hold water (forced pun intended): Proxy and Prevalence both have only won while racing on Lasix (the former where it was permitted for 2-year-olds at Fair Grounds last autumn and the latter Jan. 23 at Gulfstream, where Lasix is allowable in non-stakes for 3-year-olds). If they are to continue as serious Derby candidates, they'll have to forego it.

But you can bet potential links to medication-free racing will be worthy of further exploration if elite-level homebreds continue to cluster at the top of the crop.

Sundance debut for “Jockey”

This past Saturday, two horses named after filmmaking kingpins ran in Derby prep races–Tarantino (Pioneerof the Nile) was second in the Holy Bull S., and Spielberg (Union Rags) ran fourth in the GIII Lewis S.

But the more intriguing mashup between cinema and horse racing occurred on Sunday, when the independent, small-budget film “Jockey” overcame long odds to premiere at the world-renowned Sundance Film Festival in the category of U.S. Dramatic Competition.

“Jockey” was shot at Turf Paradise in 2019, using live race action and the backdrop of a working stable area to augment the scripted parts of the film. Texas-based director and co-writer Clint Bentley is the son of the late Quarter Horse jockey Robert Glenn Bentley, who rode primarily in the Southwest and also at Pompano Park in the early 1980s when the Florida harness track used to host Quarter Horse meets.

Although the debut screening of “Jockey” occurred too late on Sunday evening to allow for a review prior to deadline for this column, advance press material describes the plot as revolving around an aging jockey (Clifton Collins Jr.) trying to go out as a winner despite a litany of injuries that have compromised his health. His spirits get a boost when he gets a leg up on a promising young horse, but when a budding young rider (Moises Arias) arrives on the circuit and claims to be his son, the journeyman jock is forced to confront whether his last gasp at achieving on-track success is more important than his longing for the family connections he gave up to pursue his race-riding dreams.

The buzz prior to Sunday's world premiere was strong enough that “Jockey” was acquired last week by the Berlin-based Films Boutique for international sales, according to the show-biz trade publication Variety.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sundance festival this year is taking place in an online-only format. One additional screening of “Jockey” is scheduled Feb. 2, and (as of this writing) limited-availability tickets are still available for $15 at Sundance.org.

Prior to the 99-minute feature “Jockey,” Bentley created a precursor short film in 2017 that was similarly inspired by his father and the hardscrabble existence of jockeys riding on low-level circuits. That 10-minute short, titled “9 Races,” was shot at Retama Park. You can view it online for free here.

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Knicks Go-Charlatan Showdown Could Be in the Offing

The Week in Review, by Bill Finley

After last year's GI Breeders' Cup Classic, it seemed that every horse that mattered had been retired and that 2021 was going to be a bleak year for the handicap ranks. But 23 days into the year, it is apparent that's not going to be the case. First, Charlatan (Speightstown) turned in a sizzling performance in his comeback race in the GI Runhappy Malibu S. and, exactly four weeks, later Knicks Go (Paynter) could not have won the GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational any more easily. And the two may be on a collision course, with the possibility that they will meet in the Feb. 20 Saudi Cup.

Brad Cox reported Sunday that Knicks Go came out of the Pegasus in good shape and was on his way back to his base at Fair Grounds. Cox and his owner, the Korean Racing Authority, have yet to decide where Knicks Go will run next, but the trainer said that the Saudi Cup is “on the radar.” He added that the March 27 G1 Dubai World Cup is also a consideration.

A Charlatan-Knicks Go showdown in Saudi Arabia would be great theater. Not only are they both immensely talented, both are horses that combine brilliant early speed with stamina. If they were to meet, it would be possible that they could turn the event into a match race, going hard after one another every step of the way.

In the meantime, Cox will allow himself to enjoy what was a statement-making performance from Knicks Go Saturday at Gulfstream. Not only did he win decisively, he had no problem negotiating the mile-and-an-eighth distance, dispelling one of the few knocks against a horse who had never run beyond a mile and a sixteenth.

“We are hopeful that he can be a top horse in the handicap division,” Cox said. “On Saturday, he was able to get a mile and an eighth with solid fractions up front and was able to carry his speed. He's a very talented horse. He showed brilliance as a 2-year-old in the Breeders' Futurity and again in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. He came right back to that form.”

What makes Knicks Go so dangerous is that he is capable of ripping off fractions of 22.90, 46.16 and 1:09.91, his splits in the Pegasus, and keep going as if the pace took nothing out of him.

“Any time you are running races at a mile and an eighth or more, speed is deadly,” Cox said.

The Saudi Cup is a one-turn, mile-and-an-eighth race, while the Dubai World Cup is a mile-and-a-quarter event run around two turns. At some point, whether it is in the Dubai World Cup or the Breeders' Cup Classic, Knicks Go is going to have to show that he can get the 10 furlongs. Cox doesn't see it as a problem.

“I like the idea of him going two turns and a mile and a quarter,” he said. “I think he can handle that and that's why Dubai is an option.”

Though Knicks Go won the GI Breeders' Futurity as a 2-year-old, he did not put it together until joining the Cox stable before a Feb. 22 allowance at Oaklawn. He's 4-for-4 since and has turned in Beyer numbers of 107, 108 and 108 in his last three starts. His best number prior to entering the Cox barn was a 93.

“His works at the Fair Grounds leading up to the Pegasus, I thought he was as good or better than he was leading up to the Dirt Mile,” Cox said. “He's the type of horse that gives you confidence as a trainer.”

A Bright Future For Prevalence?

There were seven graded stakes races on the Saturday card at Gulfstream, but there was no overshadowing the performance by Prevalence (Medaglia d'Oro) in the sixth race, a seven-furlong maiden special weight event. Trained by Brendan Walsh, he ran away from what looked like a strong group on paper. Eased up at the end by Tyler Gaffalione, he nonetheless managed to win by 8 1/2 lengths, earning an 89 Beyer and 'TDN Rising Star' honors. The runner-up was Stage River (Pioneerof the Nile), the half brother to Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy).

“I thought he was a nice horse, but did I expect him to do that? No. It was impressive,” trainer Brendan Walsh said.

Walsh said he has yet to decide on what will be next for Prevalence.

Though it's a long way from a maiden race in January to the Kentucky Derby, Prevalence ran well enough to suggest that he could be a major factor going forward in the 3-year-old ranks. That's more good news for Godolphin. The stable has had no success when it comes to the GI Kentucky Derby and now has two candidates in Prevalence and GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Essential Quality (Tapit). This is easily the strongest hand Godolphin has had with fewer than 100 days to go until the Derby.

Larry King, Horseplayer

Long before he came to CNN, Larry King, who died last week at age 87, had a mid-morning show on WIOD radio in Florida in the 1970s. With his afternoons off, King spent plenty of days in the press boxes at the Florida tracks, where he was known as an enthusiastic horseplayer.

In his 2009 biography “My Remarkable Journey,” King wrote about a day at Calder in 1971 where he took the last $42 to his name and wagered it on a 70-1 shot named Lady Forli. He wrote that he had win tickets on the mare and also had the exacta and the trifecta. He went on to claim that he won $11,000 on the race and used it to pay child support and his rent for a year.

It's a good story, but…

Lady Forli was born in 1972, didn't start until 1975 and never won a race in the U.S., let alone at 70-1. And in 1971, trifectas were not offered at Calder.

“Larry King spun a sweet little tale of hitting it big at the racetrack, thanks to a plucky horse named Lady Forli. Are you sitting down? It's all a lie!” reads a line from a story on the book in Deadspin.

In 2003, the horse Larry King debuted at Santa Anita. Bred by Sid and Jenny Craig, the son of Deputy Minister won three of 20 starts.

Swiss Skydiver Was Snubbed

While Authentic (Into Mischief) will be named Horse of the Year, and deservedly so, it was more than disappointing that Swiss Skydiver (Daredevil) was not among the three finalists for the title.

In an era where a top horse may run four or five times a year and with eight, nine weeks off in between races, she was a breath of fresh air. Starting her year off in February and concluding it in the Breeders' Cup in November, she made 10 starts, running at nine different tracks. She won five stakes, including the GI Alabama S. and a historic win over Authentic and other males in the GI Preakness S.

Had she won the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff, I very well may have voted for her for Horse of the Year. Eclipse Awards are supposed to be emblematic of sustained success over the course of the year, and no horse embodied that more than Swiss Skydiver. The voters should have recognized this and rewarded a remarkable filly for her remarkable year.

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The Week in Review: Sparks of Brightness Amid the Winter Solstice

Leave it to one of the darkest days of the year to deliver two glimmering equine efforts that could combust into shining stars for the 2021 racing season.

On the cusp of the winter solstice, breakout races book-ended the Saturday Fair Grounds card. One was a smart, step-wise progression by a juvenile colt in a NW2L allowance who now has credible GI Kentucky Derby aspirations. The other was an admirably impressive comeback by a still-undefeated 3-year-old whose own chance at the 2020 Derby got derailed by injuries and untimely setbacks.

Both horses are campaigned by Godolphin, which is off to a rip-roaring start at the three-week-old New Orleans meet with a 7-1-5 record and $233,740 in earnings from just 17 starts through Saturday’s racing.

Proxy (Tapit) ably made the jump from the maiden-winning ranks to Derby relevancy in the first race Dec. 19. Even though his second lifetime two-turn win came against a short field, don’t hold that against him, as each one of the three rivals gave the Godolphin homebred a serious challenge.

Proxy brushed the gate at the break, recovered well, and emerged confidently from between horses to assume command onto the backstretch. The chart doesn’t show it, but he conceded the top spot between calls, giving up the rail and the lead to an eager pace prompter.

Proxy re-engaged and swatted away that foe at the entrance to the final bend, then braced for a tag-team attack from the two stretch-running colts who had been held in abeyance.

All four horses were within a length of one another three-sixteenths from the wire, and Proxy drifted out three times under left-handed pressure. He appeared to intimidate an outside rival, but being in close quarters only emboldened Proxy, and when asked for another level of torque in deep stretch he dug in and responded, opening up to win by 2 1/4 lengths at 7-10 odds for trainer Michael Stidham and jockey Angel Suarez.

Although Proxy’s final time of 1:45.56 was not stellar (76 Beyer Speed Figure), his effort impressed more from a “how he did it” perspective rather than “how fast.”

Proxy’s pedigree has a tantalizing, distance-centric slant. In 2007, his dam, Panty Raid, won the GI American Oaks Invitational S. at 10 furlongs on the turf, the GI Spinster S. at nine furlongs on a synthetic track, and the GII Black-Eyed Susan S. at nine furlongs on dirt.

Godolphin purchased Panty Raid for $2.5 million at the 2008 Fasig-Tipton November sale, and she most notably produced the Stidham-trained Micheline (Bernardini), who earlier this year was a MSW and GISP Godolphin filly who set a course record for 1 5/16 miles in a $500,000 grass stakes at Kentucky Downs.

Proxy, it should be noted, has raced on Lasix for both of his Fair Grounds wins after running second, beaten a neck, without it in his Monmouth Park debut. He’ll have to ditch the Lasix in order to stamp himself as a top-tier Derby candidate, because this year’s edition (and the major points-earning Derby prep races) will be conducted without that anti-bleeding drug.

‘Max’ is Back

A dozen races and nearly six hours later on Saturday, Maxfield (Street Sense) pranced onto the floodlit Fair Grounds main track for the Tenacious S.

If the passage of nearly seven months since his last start made you forget what a sleek and athletically gifted equine specimen he is, the dark bay’s presence in this relatively modest $75,000 nightcap would soon snap you back to those long, warm days of spring, when “Max” was ranked as high as third on the TDN Derby Top 12 and was last seen professionally dismantling a pretty decent field in the GIII Matt Winn S. even though he was not fully cranked for a prime effort that day.

Depending on which prism you choose to view him through, Maxfield is either the most unlucky four-for-four racehorse on the planet right now or the luckiest.

On the unlucky side, recall that Max unleashed the most visually impressive juvenile stakes effort of 2019 when he ransacked the GI Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity field at Keeneland that October. He loomed as one of the favorites for the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, but was forced to scratch the week of the race, and underwent ankle chip surgery in November that kept him sidelined until mid-winter.

Godolphin tasked trainer Brendan Walsh with mapping out a slow but steady 2020 comeback for Max. But just when he appeared poised to resurface in the entries, the pandemic hit, halting most racing and knocking the Triple Crown schedule askew.

Yet a few weeks later, this timing change appeared to work in Maxfield’s favor, because that May 23 Winn score would allow the homebred time for a summer prep race or two prior to the rescheduled Sept. 5 Derby.

But on June 10, Maxfield suffered a non-displaced condylar fracture in his right front leg while breezing a half-mile at Keeneland. Godolphin immediately issued a press release saying that it was looking forward to a 2021 campaign after the colt healed. But that prospect was hardly etched in stone.

So the fact that Max persevered through yet another long-haul rehab has to be considered the lucky part. The icing on the cake is that he thrived in Saturday’s comeback, and we still have yet to see his all-out best.

Shadowing the speed, the 1-2 favorite cut an intimidating presence while in stalk mode sitting second for most of an untroubled trip, and watching Max inch forward with metronomic precision down the backstretch gave the impression that he could have inhaled the frontrunner at will.

But jockey Florent Geroux instead waited until five-sixteenths out to cue his colt to quicken, with Max coming over the top at the three-sixteenths pole. He was hand-urged and not overly extended to win by 2 1/2 measured lengths in 1:43.35 (98 Beyer).

“I’m relieved,” Walsh said post-race. “It’s nice to get him back [to racing] and have him run so well. He was working so well going into it, you’re just looking for confirmation. He gave us what we needed to see…. He was a little fresh, so maybe he was a little more aggressive than normal. I don’t think he’s a deep closer by any means. He’s a stronger horse this year and I think we can ride him more prominently.”

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