2008 Travers

The Travers was competitive, entertaining, and surprisingly true to expected form. Anyone notice the whips by the jocks in the stretch? Watch the contrast in whip use by G. Gomez and Albarado!

I noticed that by post time the betting public had figured out Colonel John. A bit of a no-brainer since CJ sported the best:

Owner
Trainer
Training
Jockey
Pedigree

And then won by half a nostril. Lol, occasionally things do turn out as expected. Was Neil Howard's horse on steroids? That will be a thankfully irrelevant question next year.

What happens here to the Breeder's Cup? The Pyro people will throw up their hands and figure (at long last) they have little to lose by training that horse like Curlin, and I'd might expect a healthy Pyro to make some noise Cup day but, unless there's a significant win in the works maybe in another race besides the Classic.

Colonel John will continue without doubt the steady training regimen of Eion Hardy, 5f breeze every 6 days that provides more appropriate work than any other Breeder's Cup horse is likely to get even if it's "light" training in reality. A healthy CJ with a couple more races I'd expect to be a very tough horse come November.

As to Curlin, how can big mouth Jess Jackson avoid the Breeder's Cup Classic with all this talk? Asmussen has to date done a nice job with this horse, and I'm wondering why breeding shed economics would be a concern for an 80 year old millionaire owner. I think Curlin will be there and we migth see whether the late 3 year old CJ can run down the late 4 year old Curlin who should be equally tough in terms of fitness. As of right now, I think CJ might do the job, but, we'll see how the training goes!

For Big Brown, formerly considered by me as the horse of the century in terms of talent, first I think BB may have outgrown his former ability. BB's thickened considerably and Dutrow has allowed the horse to gain a lot of weight. You are of course unable to starve an athlete in training, but certainly the training regimen should have been sufficient to prevent the 100 excess lbs. this horse has put on. So, without a chance to see the horse regularly, you'd have to expect that BB might have lost something since early in the year in terms of natural speed. It might also be otherwise and that with appropriate training and racing--at least 2 more races would be necessary--you could also see a Breeder's Cup runaway by Big Brown.

With a pretty decent trainer but truly creepy(to me) ownership, BB has become this year's wild card. Dutrow and Michelle Nevin screaming their lungs out as they enter the stretch will be worth the price of admission.

Tomorrow its on to look at bone cells post breeze.

Training:
Fri. 8/22: Off
Sat. 8/23 1/2 inch of rain eliminates any productive tack work. This is the easy day before the speed day and we choose to go riderless through the mud: 10 minutes, I never kept track but it was something like 8 x 4f all told at medium speeds for the most part. Pretty good workout. They were huffing and puffing due to the weight of carrying mud in their hoofs. The 2 year old is starting to look a little better in his work.