Saturday, October 4, 2008

Beach is Beach, Dewey Beaten Again, Mr. Big Holds On

Good racing today at the Red Mile.

First up, in elim one of the Futurity, Deweycheatumnhowe got up by a nose to win in a relatively slow 52.3. He had a nice 57 and change back half to close into (amazingly the first half was as fast as the FFA pacers went!), but he looked less than impressive. In fact, he only held his longshot stablemate off by three quarters of a length and that stablemate closed from behind him.

In the next leg, he was soundly beaten as he had to work a little against leader Clerk Magistrate. He came third and the place prices exploded the tote board. I wondered about that. Why in heavens name was this horse bet so hard in the place pool? He has not at all been dominant in this division much the last month, and after his first heat he looked to be very beatable. Celebrity Secret got the job done off a nice trip and drive with JC in the bike.

In the final it was a race off. John Campbell controlled the pace nicely with Celebrity Secret and the two of them rolled down the lane. Dewey got up by a nose to win.

In the Tattersalls I was a bit worried about the Beach. The track looked off a little bit and after last weeks all out performance I wondered if he could be at his best. This is the first time I ever had a tinge of apprehension with this horse. It was wrong. He was awesome again, tying previous years track and former world record in 147.4. As we all know: He makes very, very nice horses look completely ordinary.

Commenters on the blog have always wondered who the person is that votes for Mr. Big in the horse of the year voting against the Beach. It is a head scratcher. That was pretty apparent today as Mr. Big won, but he was not impressive. Beach went 2 seconds faster than he did. You see a three year old go two full seconds faster than the best aged horse maybe once a decade. Probably not even that.

Late in the year we tend to get questions answered about horses, especially at Lexington. Today was no different.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You forgot about Art Official, or did you?
Kinda hard to overlook the EPO exactor of the year isn't it?
Mr. Big, while I agree he looked flat, he still won and much like Brian said in the interview, he's the type of horse that just pulls himself up when he thinks he's done his work. Makes sense, especially with all those monstrous first over trips this year. I think Zooka beats him if Jody had one straight path in the final hundred yards.
Yeah, Dewey lost one of the battles, he still won the war.
He came from China in the first heat, and knowing that there was no way in the world he would lose a match race to anybody, he didn't go full out in the 2nd heat. I know it doesn't make sense, but in my mind it does.
Now on to the Beach...today, I think was the first time in any of his races this year(even the M1 pace) that I thought he was beat at the top of the stretch.
Was I the only one?

regards,

Louis

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