BC PPs

Star of the BC at left.

Some of the BC winners intrigued me enough that I did today spring the $3 for the BC PPs. The present topic here is training and performance. Do the PPs show anything that helps?

My first interest was the BC Marathon won by Afleet Again at 41.60 odds. Surely there was some good training there, right?

Vid. stolen from Left At The Gate. Does that make u want to get right out there? And, looking PPs, Afleet Again, shows how many pre-BC works? Zero, zip, none. Afleet did finish 2nd in a mile 1/16th race on Oct. 9. Otherwise, nada, zip. OK Afleet breeding is the marathoners Afleet Alex and Wild Again. That explains it. Who knows what they did with the horse as it must have been something significant. Connections shocked, category inexplicable, see Bill O'Gorman book.

Maybe the Marathon second Bird Run trained by Bill Mott shows something? Just two 5f breezes , although, interestingly, after the 10/10 race Mott commits conventional trainer sacrilige and breezes the horse 4f in :48.2 5 days post race, and so, at least Bird Run has a nice sequence of race/breezing before the Marathon. Would have to ask Mott why he spaces them 7 days apart but breezes 5 days after the last race. Whatever.

The detested (on this blog) Aidan O'Brien wins with Wrote in the Juvenile Turf, worthy of comment here because I was highly impressed by the sire High Chapparral, and Green Desert always makes for a nice broodmare sire combo. Second place finisher from Woodbine trained by Ian Black does what passes these days for conventional training at the upper levels, basically 5f every 7 days, although this colt, interestingly does them primarily in :12s instead of Todd Plecher style in :12.3s.

Most interesting stuff in the sprint as Baffert's Euroears does the first 4f in :11 flats and then fades out of sight. Interesting stuff: Raced 10/1 and finished 8 of 8 in the slop. Lol. How's that for a BC prep. Apparently uninjured Baffert then reels off :48.2, 46.1, 56.3 and 57.4 averaging about 6 days apart into the race. Would Euroears be conditioned for this sprint off these works? The answer lies in that the BC race was only the 4th of the year for the horse. Far more expenditure of energy in racing than working and here on a deep difficult track. Nice try by Baffert. Fail. Probably for reasons of prior injury.

Hamazing Destiny by DW Lukas was noted earlier that questionable training showed in a :15 sec vid of obliviousness to leads and galloping on a beat up track. Add that HD last breezes 12 days out from the race. I am sure, however, the horse "looked" marvelous before he finished up the track. I am unable to consistently pick winners, but loosers I can generally snarf out on a short glance.

And, what's this? Good Lord. Bill Spawr breezing the winner Amazombie 2 days out from the race, 7 days out from the race and 7 more days out from the race. The horse has a total of 5 works/races in October. Have seen that before somewhere on this blog.

Typical Asmussen training for Turf Sprint winner Regally Ready, but note recent vids show Asmussen horses with significant gallop outs. More there than meets the eye in the PPs.

Dirt Mile: Nice Baffert training of The Factor. Will go with Bill Pressey's explanation re surface change as the likely explanation for the fade. Could also have been injury. Would Baffert be working too hard since Euroears also faded. Depends on what he does on off days. I am without any idea.

Don Von Hemmel, or more accurately Donnie to distinguish him from his father the Ak Sar Ben trainer, hits the big time with Caleb's Possey. Wtf. Take note these trainers are all doing every 7 day stuff now. That's good and a step up from where race horse training had been, which would be best explanation here: Good horse, good race strategy, average training.

I like all the Americans training their 1.5 mile BC Turf horses 4 and 5f trying to beat Europeans. Where is it written you have to be smart to be a horse trainer? Hence Nicholas Abbey.

In the 5 weeks before the BC Turf Mile Court Vision had 6 works. Fit horse, possibly? They need to figure out why the Europe Horses have to stay in the barn two days during quarantine. That is devastating to training. Why would it violate a quarantine to send a horse to the track? How far does an IQ of 150 get you on the race track--Exhibit A and B: Plecher's destruction of Sydney's Candy(soft breezing). Plecher's destruction of Uncle Mo.

I am expecting to see something significant in the Drosselmeyer PPs. (looks down at D PPs):
5f in 1:01 7 days out, 5f in 1:01 7 days prior, 4f in :47.3 7 days prior and raced a 2nd in Jockey Clug G. Cup on 10/1. I'll avoid checking, but suspect D is only horse in the field to have a nice pattern of 1 1/4 and 1 1/2 mile races. Indeed, and along with minimum style breeze work with perfect strategy/perfect ride is enough to run away from these in the stretch.

I humorously note Zito has graduated, apparently, to 5f breezing, that Game On Dude shows a typical Baffert pattern which is slightly more intense than "normal conventional". That Havre De Grace true to the should have stayed retired Larry Jones has only 3 works in month before race, and everything else is in the "norm" these days. Better norm than it used to be. Will be interesting how some of these young trainers coming up will try to beat these norms. (Trainer in the Photo at Top is Bill Spawr--award for best BC training job with Sprint Winner Amazombie. What got into Spawr all of the sudden?)
Training:
3 days of rain. Too wet to do anything but walk this morning. We decline.