Post by Peter Gross on Oct 22, 2009 7:04:20 GMT -5
Unlike other major league sports, there is no actual 'season' for horse racing. It's a 12 month a year deal and most months, there's something important going on somewhere.
For example, last Saturday at Woodbine was important on both the Thoroughbred and Standardbred fronts. Woodbine had three huge Turf races, all with Breeders' Cup implications. The fantastic Champs Elysees put a huge exclamation mark on his career with a monster charge down the stretch to gobble up the field in the $2 million Pattison International. This mile and a half turf test was a Breeders' Cup 'Win and You're In' race, but Champs Elysees owners rewarded the colt by announcing his retirement. Capturing the Pattison won't hurt his stud fees at all.
The mile and a quarter E.P. Taylor Stakes had one of those "what the' finishes when 44-1 shot Lahaleeb won by almost two lengths dropping the collective jaws of most of the bettors who silently ( or otherwise) were sticking a common profanity after "what the.."
The other turf Stakes on Saturday was the Nearctic, a six furlong spring and Field Commission scored for local trainer Danny Vella. Field Commission went off at 5.6-1, somewhat of a short price considering he had never won before on the grass. Local horse, Bogue Chitto, ridden by Gerry Olguin might have appeared to be in over his head with this group, but he came second at 21-1 .
When the Saturday thoroughbred races were over, Woodbine became a harness palace again, with three elimination heats for the Breeders Crown races which will take place on October 24. The delightfully named Mr. Wiggles was a 10-1 surprise winner in the pace for three year old colts and geldings. Driven brightly by Cory Callahan, Mr. Wiggles undulated to the finish line two lengths the best. It was kind of a strange elimination heat, because pacing stars Well Said and Vintage Master had already been granted byes to the $617,880 final, which meant the top 8 out of ten in this race would also advance...Must have been quite the battle for 8th place - Straight Shooting and Runaway Energy were voted off the island.
They needed two eliminations for the 3 year-old filly trotters...Elusive Desire came home first for Paul MacDonell in the first heat and it was Margarita Momma scoring easily in the second for Ron Peirce. So this Saturday there will be eight Breeders Crown races at Woodbine, each worth in excess of $600,000 and in two Saturdays hence we have the Breeders' Cup from Santa Anita.
If you've been wondering why I hadn't submitted to this blog for two weeks ( as if anyone actually reads this!), my involvement with Down The Stretch, Canada's most informative and entertaining horse racing newspaper has really sucked all my time away recently. For reasons I can't divulge ( well, ok, Breeders Crown bought a full page in the paper and we wanted to give the maximum bang for the buck) I wanted to bring the paper out a couple days earlier than usual. That compressed the time necessary to put everything together and to do it without an ocean of typos, misspells and dangling modifiers.
Anyway, the 24th issue of Down The Stretch is now in multiple locations - the main entrance and west entrance at Woodbine, all over the backstretch, in several 'select' off-track Champion Theatres and as usual, it's on the internet at www.downthestretchnewspaper.com - I think I'm safe in bragging that we're the only paper with all our editorial content on line.
In the paper you can read about how I did in my noble and historic attempt to see what would happen to one man who chose only to bet daily doubles for 50 days ( still waiting to hear from the Nobel people). There's a two page feature on trainer Roger Attfield, one of the very finest people in the game, an update on the Fort Erie situation ( deteriorating, as usual) and a full page of picks for the upcoming Breeders' Cup. Contributor Keith McCalmont is pretty sharp when it comes to handicapping and I've read the odd form, but we once again brought in the world's most horse racing knowledgeable hamster, Orbit, for his B.C Cup breakdown. When it comes to must read stuff, anybody have some carrot shavings?
For example, last Saturday at Woodbine was important on both the Thoroughbred and Standardbred fronts. Woodbine had three huge Turf races, all with Breeders' Cup implications. The fantastic Champs Elysees put a huge exclamation mark on his career with a monster charge down the stretch to gobble up the field in the $2 million Pattison International. This mile and a half turf test was a Breeders' Cup 'Win and You're In' race, but Champs Elysees owners rewarded the colt by announcing his retirement. Capturing the Pattison won't hurt his stud fees at all.
The mile and a quarter E.P. Taylor Stakes had one of those "what the' finishes when 44-1 shot Lahaleeb won by almost two lengths dropping the collective jaws of most of the bettors who silently ( or otherwise) were sticking a common profanity after "what the.."
The other turf Stakes on Saturday was the Nearctic, a six furlong spring and Field Commission scored for local trainer Danny Vella. Field Commission went off at 5.6-1, somewhat of a short price considering he had never won before on the grass. Local horse, Bogue Chitto, ridden by Gerry Olguin might have appeared to be in over his head with this group, but he came second at 21-1 .
When the Saturday thoroughbred races were over, Woodbine became a harness palace again, with three elimination heats for the Breeders Crown races which will take place on October 24. The delightfully named Mr. Wiggles was a 10-1 surprise winner in the pace for three year old colts and geldings. Driven brightly by Cory Callahan, Mr. Wiggles undulated to the finish line two lengths the best. It was kind of a strange elimination heat, because pacing stars Well Said and Vintage Master had already been granted byes to the $617,880 final, which meant the top 8 out of ten in this race would also advance...Must have been quite the battle for 8th place - Straight Shooting and Runaway Energy were voted off the island.
They needed two eliminations for the 3 year-old filly trotters...Elusive Desire came home first for Paul MacDonell in the first heat and it was Margarita Momma scoring easily in the second for Ron Peirce. So this Saturday there will be eight Breeders Crown races at Woodbine, each worth in excess of $600,000 and in two Saturdays hence we have the Breeders' Cup from Santa Anita.
If you've been wondering why I hadn't submitted to this blog for two weeks ( as if anyone actually reads this!), my involvement with Down The Stretch, Canada's most informative and entertaining horse racing newspaper has really sucked all my time away recently. For reasons I can't divulge ( well, ok, Breeders Crown bought a full page in the paper and we wanted to give the maximum bang for the buck) I wanted to bring the paper out a couple days earlier than usual. That compressed the time necessary to put everything together and to do it without an ocean of typos, misspells and dangling modifiers.
Anyway, the 24th issue of Down The Stretch is now in multiple locations - the main entrance and west entrance at Woodbine, all over the backstretch, in several 'select' off-track Champion Theatres and as usual, it's on the internet at www.downthestretchnewspaper.com - I think I'm safe in bragging that we're the only paper with all our editorial content on line.
In the paper you can read about how I did in my noble and historic attempt to see what would happen to one man who chose only to bet daily doubles for 50 days ( still waiting to hear from the Nobel people). There's a two page feature on trainer Roger Attfield, one of the very finest people in the game, an update on the Fort Erie situation ( deteriorating, as usual) and a full page of picks for the upcoming Breeders' Cup. Contributor Keith McCalmont is pretty sharp when it comes to handicapping and I've read the odd form, but we once again brought in the world's most horse racing knowledgeable hamster, Orbit, for his B.C Cup breakdown. When it comes to must read stuff, anybody have some carrot shavings?
