Friday, September 28, 2012

Yankee Fourtune, presumably on the down side

Yankee Fourtune, a 5-year-old who has now won over $300,000 and who bagged a couple of grade IIIs a couple of years ago, inhabited a $16,000 claimer at Belmont Thursday. He registered a romp by the standards of turf races, coming home 4 3/4 lengths clear.

He is a horse who you can present as even better than his record. Not that he is, but there are some neat facts about him around company lines. When he won the Commonwealth Turf, the horses he beat included Guys Reward (finished 2nd and has earned $553,000), Turallure (3rd, $1,341,000), Mister Mardi Gras (5th, $729,000), and Stormy Lord (6th, $1,153,000). Then you can look at a more recent race, a December allowance where Little Mike bested him for the win by only a nose, and we all know what Little Mike has accomplished this year.

It took time for the strength of the Commonwealth Turf to play out, and the subsequent success of those horses does not necessarily mean that they ran as well that day as they would go on to run later, and does not necessarily mean that Yankee Fourtune achieved a major feat in beating them. Even setting aside somewhat nondescript Beyers, I don't think many regarded Yankee Fourtune as a likely future grade I winner when he was winning the Commonwealth Turf and running his other best races.

But he was a horse who stood out for winning as much as for anything else, taking his second career start, and winning four more in a row before suffering his first loss on the turf. How ironic, then, that running 2nd to him on Thursday was Gamblin Fever, who not only had run off the board in 13 straight races before Thursday, but stood a woeful 2 for 59 lifetime in the win department. The first of those wins came in 2009 with our W. C. Jones a neck behind him in 3rd, so I'll always feel some sort of a connection to the horse.

Yankee Fourtune's steep drop (he had been favored in his last two starts when exposed for $35,000 and $50,000) is not dissimilar to what we saw with a couple of Baffert trainees this year. Stirred Up, 3rd in the Sunland Derby and Jerome this year, started for $16,000 a couple of months ago, checking in 4th. Baffert also at least toyed with running 4-year-old Da Ruler, a 5 3/4-length winner of a nw1x at the Spring/Summer Hollywood meet, for $10,000 three weeks ago, but Da Ruler was scratched. Like with Da Ruler, Yankee Fourtune's preparation for his big-drop claiming race did not omit workouts; last competing on August 31, he had worked on September 14 and September 22.

The sobering reality is probably that many racers have essentially negligible value, even if they are just a bit on the downside and nothing is terribly wrong with them. Since this is true, the aggressive trainer has an opportunity to win races with horses like Yankee Fourtune who lay over a field.



Monday, September 24, 2012

Males invariably faster than females in state-bred stakes

One pattern I notice, which is purely an observation, and of a type that could well be dead wrong, is that males really outperform females when two divisions of "little" stakes," or state-bred stakes are run. I'm talking time-wise; for instance, it's not the best example because Palmy Bay won by 12 1/4, but he won the Louisiana Stallion on Saturday in 1:23.94, while I Dare U Em required 1:25.25 in the fillies' division. I generally see large differences between males and females in these lower-division races, while the sexes seem more closely matched at the graded stakes level.

If anything, I would have guessed the trend would be opposite -- that when you're talking about a Louisiana Stallion race, the quality of the winner from year to year is likely to vary greatly, and the same would apply with the quality from one division to the next. So times for the sexes would cross quite a bit. When you're looking at the past performances for state-bred stakes, particularly in states that don't produce many serious race horses, there's a decided lack of depth. If that lack of depth permeates the top, which it sometimes does, then you can get some really dreadful races. Quality would seem to matter more than sex. But this doesn't seem to play out; I think males or well ahead of females in small-time racing.

Trying to figure out why is completely perplexing. Is the style of training less fancy horses, maybe of working them somewhat hard, more effective with males? This is about the best I can come up with.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

The case for Radiant Cut

She was 8th by 7 1/2 at Saratoga without an excuse in a maiden special weight, but my heart ached when I saw this filly was in for 50k at Belmont yesterday and won. It seems too easy to tab horses who projected out to very good showings with a normal break in one of their races -- too easy, and as if it doesn't work as often as logic says it should.

Radiant Cut fit the bill in her 6/29 Belmont debut; my notes have her start as "super slow." She finished 6th by 6 1/4 in a field of 9, and I remember her start as hypothetically accounting for the entire deficit. (I like to give context, so the winner was Almost an Angel, who either planted the seed or directly inspired the "Wesley Ward with raced 2 yos" post).

That race was 6f on the turf. Then came the 1 1/16 race at Saratoga, where I didn't see any of the promise I'd seen in the debut. She continued to work afterwards, so soundness was not obvously lacking.

Pedigree was another strong angle with Radiant Cut. Her dam, Ruff, won the Miss Grillo in 2000, and her half brother, Mr. Gruff is/was a very, very talented horse. He's sort of the poor man's Shakespeare: 7 for 13 lifetime, but not breaking his maiden until age 5, and needing five years to compile those 13 starts. Except for a race in Dubai, the horse always runs well. I'd say he's just a hell of a turf sprinter, but running 3rd in the 2010 Shoemaker at a mile, he might just be a hell of a horse, or a hell of a turf horse, anyway.

Then you have Radiant Cut's sire. Sharp Humor isn't just a sneaky good sire; he's good.

Crunching final-time numbers and watching her victory on Friday, I hate to admit that I saw a filly who was probably pegged accurately for $50,000. She showed a legitimate turn of foot to thrust herself into contention down the backstretch, but was workmanlike in the stretch, although on the way to a 2 3/4 length win. Even on a course probably  playing slower than on Wednesday and Thursday, the 1:10.85 time doesn't give the impression that this is a filly ready to battle New York maiden special weight winners in ensuing starts.

There were positives here to an unusual degree for a lightly raced 2-year-old in for a tag. But owner Robert Spiegal bred Ruff, Mr, Gruff, and Radiant Cut, so he knows of the positives more thoroughly than I. It's hard for me to believe he didn't appreciate them, given owners' abilities to appreciate their horses. So either a) Radiant Cut has red flags, maybe of the soundness variety, that I can't know about and appreciate or b) Siegal and David Donk thought they could get away with the $50,000 maneuver, (maybe because the bad start in the debut was somewhat obscured by a 6th-place finish and an understated DRF trouble line.) She wasn't claimed, so they did get away with it.)

I feel somewhat vindicated by the win, in any event. Vindication feels hollow next to missed opportunity, however.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Haldane

Haldane, who won a 7f New York-bred nw1x for fillies and mares by 5 lengths in excellent time at Belmont yesterday, was a glaring overlay at 20-1. She was making just her 3rd start, having captured her last in maiden special weight company at Saratoga by 3 1/4 lengths. She's a full sister to two Empire Classic winners (that's typically a 250k race): Organizer, and Dr. V's Magic. One of the siblings of her dam is Acceptable, who came very close to winning the 1996 Breeders' Cup Juvenile, and siblings to her 2nd dam include Will's Way, Willa On the Move, and Citidancer. You might find New York-breds with stronger pedigrees, but not many. And because of a 62 Beyer in the last, you handicappers are going to allow 20-1? The favorite was the overwhelming Read the Research, fresh off a 76 Beyer she got in a $20,000 claiming win, that race coming two starts after she broke her maiden for the same $20,000. Haldane sure looks like a multiple stakes winner to me.

The Enron of nw1xs (won by Next Question)

A New York-bred named Next Question was a 5-length winner of an open nw1x at Belmont Wednesday. The distance and surface were 7f on the turf. He was the clear favorite, despite having finished 5th and 4th in his last two in New York-bred nw1xs. Looking at that, you'd think Next Question was a "wise guy" horse. To an extent he may have been; the Form past performances indicate a tough trip for him last time, and he went off at 2-1 that day. But when I look deeper, this race was just astonishingly absent of qualified horses.

Fresh maiden winners are appealing prospects in nw1xs, at least in terms of their long-term potential, if not their bettability. There weren't any of those in the race.

Four horses had run in the condition last out, by which I mean in an open nw1x. None had hit the board; Ivanho, 4th by 5 1/4, had been the most competitive.

Wishful Tomcat had run in open nw2xs on the dirt, finishing way back.

The rest of the field came from claimers and starters.

If you read this blog with some regularity, you know that the high volume of turf racing in New York drives me crazy. It would be easier to accept if the big fields the races drew really indicated they were filling a need of the New York-horse population. But in this case, there appears to have been absolutely no need for this race, and maybe only three horses really well qualified for the condition (this counts a horse like second-choice Becky's Kitten, who was in for the 25k optional, and did have decent tries in the condition two and three back). What you had here was really very interesting; even with horses who didn't belong, there were mass entries, with the trainers seemingly knowing that none of the others would qualified, either. The race was basically a faux nw1x; it could have just as easily been the non-winners-from-the-last-six-months $20,000 claimer of race 9.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Sis City and Wonder Lady Anne L continue their common path

Both Sis City and Wonder Lady Anne L had their 3-year-old geldings by Distorted Humor win in the last several days. I connect the two mares strongly. At first I wasn't quite sure why. I knew both were Rick Dutrow fillies, and both I thought unlikely wonders, although on review, I see that Wonder Lady Anne L was always quite nice and never ran for a tag. I thought maybe both were in the same crop, and Sis City was 'A string' and Wonder Lady Anne L. 'B string,' but they were actually a crop apart. Both won the Demoiselle; I think that's the magnetic force pushing them together in my mind -- what pushes the parallels over the edge for me into eeriness.

What's interesting and maybe surprising about their qualified broodmare success so far, of course, is that they were Dutrow horses. Because of all of his charges' positive tests, not even the naive will argue it is far-fetched to argue that they were "on something." Sis City typified patterns many, including myself, believe go along with drug use: she ran some monster races, winning the Gulfstream Davona Dale by 16 and the Ashland by 10 1/2, but she wasn't generally near that caliber. She had the infamous maiden claiming start, giving the Dutrow barn the oppotunity to pick her up.

Sis City's 3-year-old, Second City, appears to feature quite an interesting story. He won the grade III British Columbia Derby on Sunday, running his record to 4 for 4. Those wins have come at Penn National, Charles Town (twice), and Hastings. He's done all of the racing and winning since July 12. And yes, like his dam, his first win came for maiden claiming, maiden claiming 25k. He wasn't even favored, won by 8, and Jamie Ness took the wrong first-timer starter, the Tale of the Cat firster Dubonnet Red (although he was a 5-length winner in his next start, which came last Thursday). Second City went back to his original barn, Stephanie Beattie's. The ceiling might not go any higher; I mean, when the race is just the fourth fastest mile-and-an-eighth race at Hastings on the day, the odds still seem stacked against you. But he's a great story.

There wasn't much attention paid to the Wonder Lady Anne L, Distorted Dream, in his first couple of races, where he ran respectably but didn't do better than 5th. But in his return from a 2+-month layoff Wednesday, people seemed to know he was a different horse, as he just ceded favoritism to Pletcher's Slash Five, who had gotten an 83 Beyer in his last. (To back up what I'm saying, Distorted Dream was 8-1 on the morning line, Slash Five 2-1; odds at post time were 9/5 for Distorted Dream, and 3/2 for Slash Five). Distorted Dream emerged with sharp works at Belmont in August, and he added blinkers Wednesday. I don't want to suggest he's a potential star, because I'm not convinced he is, but he beat Slash Five by 3 1/2 lengths, probably never being completely set down and certainly never being whipped. I got an 87.9 figure for him.

Outside of the fact that both were stars and Distorted Humor is a hot shot in the breeding shed, it appears a coincidence that both mares went to Distorted Humor in 2008. Or at least it was a coincidence from the standpoint of ownership; Wonder Lady Anne L was going to go to Distorted Humor, being partially owned by WinStarm, but Sis City was owned by Stonerside when Distorted Humor was chosen for her, When Darley subsumed Stonerside later in 2008, they became official breeders of Distorted Dream.

The point of this post is not to say that Dutrow didn't abuse the administration of medication, nor that the medications he administered didn't make much difference in the mares' performance, only to sat that there is a lot we don't understand. I will say that I think discounting or endorsing horses based on whether you believe they were clean or not clean does not bring you any closer to making good decisions. I just don't see a correlation with the believed status of individual horses and what they go on to do as producers.

Let's take the stallion side: Saint Liam, a Dutrow horse, was going to be really good. One who is impressive now with his first crop is Frost Giant. A Dutrow horse, and really not even that good of a one; he might be a much better sire.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

How a healthy sample of races enable variant splits, multiple variants

In the Archwarrior post (to date the only one, and if this blog continues its spotlight on side topics, maybe always the only one), I wrote about my discomfiture making speed figures from just three races, while analysis tells me three races do not make for a much less accurate basis than a full card's worth.

One aspect in which this might not be true is probably for cases where the speed of the track changes during the card. By definition, then we no longer have the requisite three races to use. Patterns cannot be divined. Times do not support one another.

With a couple of races moved to the main track, Belmont had an uncharacteristic seven dirt races Sunday. And the times made it clear that one variant for all of them was untenable. The first four dirt races, all at a mile and including Dreaming of Julia's 1:36.46 clocking, suggested a track playing slightly on the slow side. The last three races were all of very cheap class, but went in 1:10.08, 1:10.88, and 1:23.61 (7f). That's a lightning-fast track, certainly for Belmont. The full-card variant says that Dreaming of Julia didn't run much faster than she did in her maiden win. The other three early mile races say she's about as solid a Breeders' Cup Juvenile Filly candidate as there is out there (which was certainly also the reflective reaction to her win).

Monday, September 10, 2012

Travis Stone

Louisiana Downs' announcer -- he sounds an awful lot like Dave Johnson, doesn't he? He has a nice voice and is easy on the ears.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Jealous husbands

I got a kick out of "Jealous" being ridden by "Husbands" (the Simon variety) at Belmont on Saturday. Blinkers got her to the front early, but she finished last. Hard to know where the horse's name ended and the jockey's began with that one.

Limited purse incentives for overnight stakes runners

It was certainly odd to see the overnight Affiliate Stakes at Belmont on Saturday run for the same purse ($80,000) that sprint maiden special weights were just days before at Saratoga. And, indicating the limited options horse people have, the Affiliate drew a fine field, if a very small one of four horses. 2011 Vanderbilt winner Sean Avery made a successful return; Royal Currier and his seven 2011-12 stakes wins came up from Monmoth. I do think it could be said that, in the interests of fairness, more separation is needed in the money offered between overnght stakes and money allowances on the one hand, and maiden special weights and first allowances on the other.

A 2 1/8th mile race, but you wouldn't have guessed it from the pedigrees

Presque Isle ran a 2 1/8th mile starter as their final race of the night Saturday, and the sires of the horses were not exactly renowned for stamina. The eight-horse field included a Gilded Time (ran 4th), an Indian Charlie (ran 8th), a Smoke Glacken (ran 7th), and a Mr. Greeley (ran 2nd). Two of those sires placed in Breeders' Cup Sprints as race horses, and another was Sprint Champion. Despite frequent noise to the contrary, if you note the sires in a Kentucky Derby and especially in a Belmont Stakes, they were typically much better stayers as race horses, and better producers of stayers, than the sires in this field. A part of me thinks that horse people get intimidated by sprint and middle-distance pedigrees and don't stretch out good horses who could handle a distance of ground. And then part of me thinks that the guidelines about stamina in pedigrees apply much better in high-quality racing than in "cheap" racing. Still, you would think that the horses in a starter race are not only blessed with less stamina than Triple Crown kinds of horses, but also slower, and that with the additional strike of limited stamina against them, they could not hope to win these kinds of races, if they were truly limited in stamina.

PID Masters bettors seemed to be betting synthetic record, not graded-stakes record

For the second straight year, the betting on the Presque Isle Downs Masters was curious. By extension, and with a big field for the second straight year, it's a race that can be counted on to be a good betting race. Indeed, even with a 7-10 winner, the $2 trifecta paid $892.80.

Last year, the fans blew it letting winner and eventual Eclipse champion Musical Romance go off at almost 9-1after she was 7/2 on the morning line. This year, Salty Strike was dismissed at 21-1 after being listed at 5-1 on the morning line, but Salty Strike did not enjoy the success of Musical Romance, running 9th. While winner and betting favorite Groupie Doll took much more money than was predicted on the morning line, the horses with odds around Salty Strike's on the morning line were not dismissed the way she was. ML price is given first, followed by actual price.

Groupie Doll 2-1, 0.70-1
It's Me Mom 4-1, 4.80-1
Salty Strike 5-1, 21.40-1
Atlantic Hurricane 6-1, 7.90-1
Holiday for Kitten 8-1, 9.60-1
Kitty in a Tizzy 8-1, 18.80-1

Four-year-old Salty Strike was a grade III winner in 2011, had taken the GIII Gardenia last out, and taken three in a row overall. What stands out about her is an 0 for 1 record on synthetic before the Masters. I wouldn't have thought the fans would have emphasized that so much, but Salty Strike was unproven on the surface.

Atlantic Hurricane's recent form was equally strong, but she was a proven commodity on synthetic, winning three times in six starts on it with in-the-money finishes on the other occasions.

Holiday for Kitten is best described as a 5f and 5 1/2-furlong turf filly and has a career-best Beyer of just 89. However, her last two races on synthetic resulted in wins in the grade II Thoroughbred Club of America, and in the Giant's Causeway, a race where she beat older horses despite being a spring 3-year-old.

Kitty in a Tizzy's price is harder to figure, since she had won the grade III Chicago on synthetic in her last, and raced on the surface in all eight of her starts previous to that. Most likely, she just got lost in the cracks in the betting, and did not possess the intriguing early speed of It's Me Mom and Holiday for Kitten. With no wins in the 24 months prior to the Chicago, she also wasn't going to excite as a synthetic specialist, even if she was proven on it.

The weighting system for the PID Masters probably leaves something to be desired, with an undue focus on 2012 record, and whether the horse was a 2012 graded stakes winner. This system left Groupie Doll, Salty Strike, and Kitty in a Tizzy giving all of the rest at least 5 pounds. It's interesting to note that Salty Strike and Kitty in a Tizzy were the two horses the oddsmaker really misread.

Perhaps he or she was looking through the framework of graded stakes success jsut the way the weighting system did, and the fans did not care about graded stakes success. It would seem to be giving the fans a lot of credit to say that they weighed the weights heavily in their bets, while the oddsmaker did not, although I suppose that is possible.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

The turbo finish of Goldencents

It's funny that I mentioned Into Mischief yesterday, because he's a first-crop sire, and on Sunday at Del Mar his 2-year-old Goldencents rang up some of the most impressive finishing fractions I can ever recall, at least by a 2-year-old winning wire-to-wire. In the 5 1/2-furlong race, he went the 1/8th from 4f to 5f in 10.95. Sounds like a work at a 2-year-old sale, doesn't it? Then he finished with a cool 5.69 for the final 1/16th.

The track was fast; that mile record I spoke of last week finally fell, to the powers of Potesta, and my varant was 1:08.35 for 6f = 100. But the track was hardly the speed of a typical firm turf course.

The two final fractions combined for a 16.64 final 3/16ths. That comes out to a 22.19-quarter pace. Goldencents ran his first two quarters in 22.83 and 23.32.

The early fractions were perhaps too slow to grant him a maximum-ability figure, and that's extremely unusual in a 5.5-furlong race (I got the Beyer-style number at 90.6, but I haven't been using the higher points-per-second-deviation on synthetic that Beyere recommends, which would lead to a better number).

Running as fast as he did late, it's sort of surprising that Goldencents lead "only" stretched from 1 1 1/2 lengths after 3/8ths, to 7 1/4 lengths at the wire. But evidently, others were also able to finish well, as they pivoted as well from the slow early fractions.

As quick as Into Mischief's dam was, I wonder what kind of distances his progeny will prefer, even though he won the Cashcall Futurity. With a dam by Banker's Gold, and a 2nd dam by Bold Ruckus, at first blush one would not think Goldencents would be the Into Mischief to break through as a router.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Shakespeare's Achilles Heel becoming clear?

Comparing my assessment of Shakespeare 12 months ago to what has transpired with his runners since, I feel psychological bruising on a par with having spent $1,000,000 on a yearling who couldn't run. Shakespeare seemed like my secret discovery everyone else would soon get wind off. At Saratoga and Woodbin in 2011, a succession of them won in fine style. The ones who didn't win gave good accounts of themselves, and seemed to win next time. But this year....there's been nothing. As infallibly talented as the Shakespeares seemed, they've been that unsound. As Shakespeare retired at the end of his 6-year-old year with just eight career starts on his ledger, perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. But I just don't see how they can all be this unsound. Live and learn, I guess.

I did some work once that established that runners/starters was a very consistent, very reliable, very real stat. The problem was that it didn't have much to do with anything else important. Getting horses who make it to the races doesn't mean that a sire sired good horses. At all.

The Shakespeare cautionary tale again brings this into question. With enough stallions like him, the relationship between soundness and stakes performance should emerge, just because unsound horses eliminate themselves from stakes contention. The rest of the thoroughbred population inevitably benefits. Eighty percent of being a stakes winner certainly isn't about showing up, to take the Woody Allen percentage, but it sure seems like it must be 15%.

Tune Me In and the non-believers

Having now won the Cliff Hanger on the heels of having won the Oceanport, Tune Me In seems on the verge of sweeping some sort of unofficial series of Monmouth middle-distance turf races. Yet in what must qualify as a freak occurrence, he was the longest shot on the board in both races! Digest that: here is a horse which had just won a race of the same grade at the same track, on the same surface and almost at the same distance, and he went off the longest shot on the board.

And I can't say I blame the Cliff Hanger bettors. Tune Me In "stole" the Oceanport; he was the rank outsider that day at 25-1; and the Cliff Hanger was just a five-horse field. Somebody had to be the longest shot on the board. Still, I wonder when the last time the equivalent happened? I bet it was a long time ago.

Tune Me In certainly looked unimpressive in the DRF PPs before the Oceanport. He had run 19 times before, placing in one stake, and earning just shy of $200,000. If you wanted to say something laudatory about him, though, the horse was in the money in 13 of his first 14 career races. That certainly suggests some class. It is notable that when he left New Jersey for New York and Florida, he stopped running in the money. But I don't mean to suggest that the Cliff Hanger and Oceanport are easier than nw3x allowances at Gulfstream and Belmont (although I suppose that is a reasonable contention).

Leslie's Lady, dam of Beholder and Into Mischief

Doing an initial and superficial analysis of her race record, I'm finding it interesting. First of all, so that everyone knows what kind of a runner this filly was, her career record was 28-5-3-2 for earnings of $187,014. She won the Hoosier Debutante, which was an open race, and ran 2nd in the Martha Washington when it was just 6f, beaten just 2 lengths by the excellent The Happy Hopper (just over $800,000 in earnings).

Leslie's Lady's in-the-money percentage of 36% was, at best, mediocre. And in none of the three years that she ran did it even hit 50%. This was not because she was usually running over her head and trying stakes; only seven of her starts were in stakes (four came consecutively at the peak of her career, which was the end of her 2-year-old year and the beginning of her 3-year-old year). Going along with a low ITM %, Leslie's Lady's winning percentage of 18% was nothing to write home about. What is interesting is that when she won, she won impressively, by good margins. Her wins came by 3 lengths, 7 lengths, 2 1/2 lengths, 6 lengths, and 6 1/2 lengths. Most horses who win that authoritatively do it more often: winning big and winning often are two characteristics of the brilliant horse. From this standpoint, Leslie's Lady was only half brilliant.

You may have guessed that Leslie's Lady was a real speed horse, and that is right. She was on the lead at the first call in four of her five wins, and 2nd by a head at the first call in the other. The distances in her wins ranged from 5f to 6 1/2 furlongs, with the first three coming at under 6f. While she did not excel over her career in either winning percentage or ITM percentage, by itself, the fact that she won four races at age 2 is impressive.

I provide all of these breakdowns because Leslie's Lady has obviously been a hell of a broodmare, and an unexpectedly good broodmare. She's just by Tricky Creek, after all, and her siblings do not get the pulse racing. But despite the negatives, there were real strengths in her race record, and maybe we should be looking for the same strengths in other broodmare prospects. Lelie's Lady probably wasn't particularly brave, but she was at least moderately talented, and talent has ended up being the important component with Into Mischief and Beholder.

I really like Beholder and what she brings to the table. Watching the Debutante again, though, where she got caught by Executiveprivilege in the last couple of jumps, it occurred to me that she just may not want to go very far. She's by Henny Hughes, and he was certainly at his best at under a mile. Now that I know Lesle's Lady's record on the track, this fortifies the reading of Beholder as a sprinter.

 But since Giacomo and Tiago's dam, Set Them Free, was a sprinter, I'm always a but cautious in ascribing too much significance to a dam's distance record. And Into Mischief never ran long, but he took the grade I, 1 1/16 CashCall Futurity in just his 3rd start. It's also not like Into Mischief's sire, Harlan's Holiday, is Dynaformer from a stamina perspective; Harlan's Holiday's Average-Winning-Distance is 7f, even.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Keen's fortuitous claim

I don't have the exact ranking for you, but Saturday's 5th at Del Mar, won by Pure Indy, was a very fast 2-year-old-filly maiden special weight. It was faster than the first division by exactly two-fifths-of-a-second (both races were 5 1/2 furlongs), and it outdid the males in race 7 easily (although that race was at a mile). The time was nearly as good as the time for the Del Mar Debutante.

Finishing 2nd in the 5th was Controlled Chaos, who had not only ran and lost for $50,000 in her last start, but been beaten handily that day. Her Beyer was only 52.

She was claimed from that race, her career debut. With the sort of improvement she enjoyed Saturday, just over two weeks later, one assumes the new trainer is one of the usual suspects -- very likely PM. But the only Peter involved with Controlled Chaos was original trainer Peter Eurton.

Instead, Controlled Chaos's new trainer is Dallas Keen. I must confess that Dallas Keen has always been branded in my mind as the guy who trained Valhol, the infamous Arkansas Derby winner disqualified when his jockey used a battery. Keen has probably given me reason to know him since, but it seems my mind will just not let in the new information.

Keen has apparently been dogged running horses at Del Mar this year, compiling 29 starts entering Saturday's card. Unfortunately, he hadn't won any of them. Lime Rickey took Saturday's 3rd race for Keen (was the 2-1 favorite), getting him off the schneid, but his meet totals are still not pretty.

So in light of Keen's record, what do we make of Controlled Chaos showing stakes-winning potential Saturday? Did Keen just make an astute claim? Or does he often improve horses, and the ones that he's been running at Del Mar have been so bad this hasn't resulted in wins or even many near wins? If you're not making a lot of acquistions or claims, but just running horses you've had for a while, your positive role in the horses' performances might not be noticeable.

If the secret in the Controlled Chaos case is the horse and not a Peter Miller or Mike Mitchell Midas touch, again this is partially hidden because Controlled Chaos's debut for Eurton was so unremarkable. Then she runs for Keen against tougher and does better. So it looks like the key had to have been the training. But maybe Controlled Chaos just needed her first race, or there was an obvious adjustment to make, and her 2nd start with Eurton would have been equally good.