The Mandella Charts

I just equibased a few of the Lukas horses. What about Mandella? I'm bloodhounding him as I write, though he seems to have disappeared this year. Are Mandella and his son still training?

A few posts ago entitled "Mandella and Injuries" I speculated on what happened to the horses in the DVD "On the Muscle", but, I declined spending $8/horse on Equibase to verify. But, the unknown kept nagging, and so today for the cheap price of $24.00 I succumbed to curiosity and did Equibase three of Mandella's horses from the DVD. The prior post guessed what happened to these horses. Were the guesses accurate?

The DVD states that the beautiful gray three year old filly Ile De France(Storm Cat-Carla Rafaela-Quiet American) after June 15, 2002 when she had run in the Hollywood Oaks was sent to the farm "due to gate problems". If you watch the DVD, the gate problem is hardly all that serious. She loads fine, though she gets restless in the gate.

Ile De France next raced on October 19 at Santa Anita. Highly doubtful you have four months between races due to a minor gate problem. I'm fairly confident there was an injury. The career ender came a few months and 4 starts later in March of 03. Life time record for this $500,000 beautifully bred, perfect animal--12 starts 2 wins, $125,000.

Gentlemen's Club (Gentlemen--Fire the Groom--Blushing Groom) is a two year old in the DVD, another "looker" who wins first out in June 2002. He next races on 9/11/02. Undoubtedly an injury. The next race after that is in Sept. 2003. Obviously a serious injury there. This horse however has a long career and raced in January of 07 at the FG under different hands. Another $550,0000 KeeJul yearling. 38 starts, 6 wins, $106,744 won and counting.

Cagney(Brz) (Roy-Donnegalle-Campero) as suspected also was injured in June 2002 and next raced in December 2003. The career ender came 4 races later in July 2003. 20 starts though for this horse and $369,000 in earnings from 5 wins.

So, I've looked closely at injuries in the Mandella and Lukas stables. What about the rest of the world. I've researched that too, but, mostly by direct observation. More on this, next post.

Training: 1/30/7 rest--frigid weather. Burch training is suspended for the present. Unable to do it.
1/31/07: about 3 mile slow pasture romp over bumpy hard ground.
2/1/07: it snowed a little, but insufficiently to help. Rather the little snow just makes the ground more bumpy and it's so hard that the horses this morning when a pasture romp was attempted, basically refused. My boys are other than dummies. Got a few slow useless gallops and about half way through, called it. Got to figure what to do about the weather soon.