Ever thought he just isn't good enough anymore?

Godolphin will have had him checked over, and he wouldn't have made the track again unless they were 100% happy with him.

Why would they risk losing $20k on a covering fee (which is what has happened) if they weren't 100% sure he was over his throat trouble?

I know they aren't the best at running a business, but that is SOME risk if they had a feeling his throat wasn't up to it.

They were disappointed with his first run back, and i imagine they had him checked over and scoped after that. I imagine he was scoped after working between races.

They were disappointed with his Dirt Mile race. Could it have been the slop?

I'm pretty sure his performances had nothing to do with his throat or ability to breath. If he was finding it hard to breathe, wouldn't Gomez have stated that after the two races? 9 times out of 10 the Jocks will know when the horses is struggling to get air into his/her lungs for whatever reason.

More dollars than sense?

Yeah - when he was kept well off the rail - and worked an effortless five furlongs in 57.46.....in a work that literally caused a sharp drop in off-shore future odds I think he proved he's a long in the tooth wash-up who has nothing anymore.


Or when he showed eye-catching athletic ability - beating the gate and putting himself in a dream tactical spot in the Vosburgh - I knew he was a wash-up.

Whenever he was put to any pressure in his two races - he made tremendously hard work of it...going from moving effortlessly to, almost in an instant, struggling.

Does anyone bother to watch races anymore?

I watched them and from a visually perspective, i have to agree with you. It did look like something was amiss.........

BUT......

Like i have said, would they really risk him looking like a shadow of his former self unless they were SURE he was over his illness? The answer is no.

If they did infact let him run TWICE knowing he wasn't over his problem, their business running and training skills are even worse than I thought.

Yes, he worked well, but did they scope him afterwards? It's more than likely they did, and they obviously found nothing.

Nine times out of ten over here, when they have a horse who runs WELL below expectations (which Discreet Cat did twice) the horses are soon at the vets having all over x-rays, scopes etc etc, which as you can imagine costs thousands. With money being no object, don't you think they would have tried EVERYTHING to make sure everything was okay with him? I certainly do.

As i say, from viewing those two races you would automatically think that something was 'wrong' with the animal, but i would also have to say that Godolphin would have checked him out 'with a fine tooth comb' to make sure he was as fit and healthy as they could possibly get him.

Maybe his run in the dirt mile was caused by something that wasn't quite right. I was surprised to see them retire him to stud this year when he will have both Hard Spun and Street Sense competing against him. I can't imagine anyone with the top quality mares would choose him over the other two even if they thought the price was a fair one.

I thought the same thing when he was brought back for the Vosburgh.

And he looked like a 1/9 shot at the 3/8ths pole...and all was right in the world.

The final 3/8ths was the horse racing equivalent of this Spears photo.....



The horse might have trained, looked, and felt spectacular....however, he ran like a horse with a serious throat issue/breathing problem.

I won't argue with you there.

Although i don't believe it was that problem that caused him to run so badly.

I tell you what i will do. I will get onto my friend Chris who works for Godolphin in America. He knows Discreet Cat quite well and will know much more than both of us.

I'm not promising that he will give too much away (you know how tight lipped these big operations are), but i can only try and find out what he knows.

He is coming home over Xmas, i think, so if i don't manage to get anything out of him tomorrow i will probably bump into him over the christmas and new year period.

So doable DrugS this is prime double wide stuff..Obviously you need help

I would think the connections never thought about the loss of stud fee(s) in bringing him back. They are not looking to make a stallion. What they thought, why they did, etc., it's nothing but a fallacious arguement.

If he's truly going to be open, I think he could attract mares that that level. He doesn't have to be a typical commercial stallion with the connections however and of course he's not being marketed to breeders here in this forum.

Eric

From all accounts, the illness this horse suffered was a lingering one; took a long time to clear. Even human athletes sometimes have problems coming back as good as they were before after a serious illness - that was what made Lance Armstorng so remarkable - and they can tell their doctors how they feel. Discreet Cat's body may have been sapped of strength in ways that don't show up on a scan. I was never a big fan of this over-hyped horse (you should have heard the GB commentators before the race; they seem to consider him one of their own and a sure thing) but I can excuse these post-illness performances.

Like that's EVER stopped breeders in this industry. Soundness seems to be the last thing on the minds of most Kentucky breeders, and, perhaps, breeders in general. Hell, I bet you see some breed-to-race people dumb enough to breed to Discreet Cat. I still can't believe stallions like Forestry (DC's sire) and Unbridled's Song are so popular. Their offspring can't stay sound if they trained on marshmellows. They just ignore soundness issues and blame it on track surfaces. But hey, those sires sell well and that's the biggest thing, right? In that area, Discreet Cat will probably follow in his father's and grandfather's hoof prints. For my sake, I hope he does.

says who???:D

I'm not sure what this horse ever did. So his signature win in this country was the Cigar Mile over Badge of Silver and a past his prime Silver Train?? I guess that's HOF material there.

According to some, that race alone put him amongst the best horses of 2006. We've seen what he has done when thrown against stiffer competition. Withers away.

Good question. My initial reaction was, "Retired from what?"

Tom Amoss on TVG 's the works said that horses with severe throat problems are never the same, they run fantastic works because they are not under any pressure, but race conditions prompt them to exert themselves and they don't breathe the same, kind of like people who have had a bad case of Bronchitis, you can heal to be healthy for normal exercise, but when really exerting yourself you cough and labor due to the earlier damage to your lungs.

How about horses that suffer from severe overratedness? Did Amoss say anything about the recovery of horses who ail from it?

Personally, I don't see what the big deal is about. Some people saw this horse and knew that he was an extremely talented horse, had a great deal of potential, etc. -- and others thought he was nothing more than a common horse who couldn't or wouldn't race, etc.

Then, I think there are people who just dislike a horse when he/she can't live up to their expectations of what a horse could and should do, where and when they should race, etc. And then there are people who have no idea what they are looking at and they tend to collapse handicapping with being a qualified and good jusge of horseflesh.

As far as the problem, I would guess that nobody will ever know the truth, and I am not sure that makes a difference in how good the horse was, might have been, etc.

Anyway, a lot of good points here.

Eric

i agree, its mere speculation to assign the cause of his sub par efforts to a severe breathing problem. i don't pretend to know what the issue is but wouldn't a severe breathing problem more severely affect his performance? can a horse with a severe breathing problem still put up 95-100 beyers, or what ever it is that his recent efforts have resulted in? it would seem to me that if the horse couldn't breath right he either wouldn't run a step, or would run for awhile and then fade badly. he actually came on again late in the mile to get third, sorta like he dug in to hold on for third in the Belmont race. everything I have read from them so far is that they are totally perplexed by the performance and have not assigned the cause for his decline to any throat or breathing issue.

i wouldn't rule out that part of the decline is merely that he was just not able to handle real competition or adversity, like the off going. He was not a very proven individual, triumphing over adversity or top competition.

Yeah it's hard to believe that folks are breeding to Song and Forestry when monsters like Charismatic are in Japan or Turkey waiting for good mares. I will agree the Gaga over Forestry is mostly great marketing.

I doubt we'll hear anything negative about his physical condition now that he's retired.

That is about as likely as Indian Vale being able to open up 10 on Hystericalady in the first quarter mile.

The horse worked an effortless 57.46 while well off the rail in what was probably as impressive a workout as any ever.

He's better now than he was last year - when he was ripping out 114-to-116 Beyers - and running away from fields that included Invasor and Sympatico Bribon - as well Silver Train (who won that years Met Mile and Tom Fool with GIANT figures - and was a champion sprinter the year before)

Well, better now with one obvious exception, he makes tremendously hard work of it after half his race is over.

He had BY FAR the best trip of any horse in the Vosburgh and still couldn't reach triple digits - and his mother LOVED the slop so much she upset the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes going 10 furlongs at Saratoga in stakes record time and winning by a pole at 30/1 odds.

Even with the aid of the best trip of his entire life in the Vosburgh - and the sloppy track (he won the Jerome in a canter with a massive fig in the slop at three) - he couldn't run a triple digit figure.

Remember, I only picked him to finish 5th in the Dirt Mile - and not finish last - because that field was beyond awful. He would have been a great bet against in a typical allowance race. His Vosburgh loss underlined the fact that he still has a serious problem.

It's pretty amazing that anyone can have any doubt about something so obvious.

Slim Jim you are out of your league ..Let it go

He's better now with the obvious exception that he is no good.

Most any very fast horse can go 57 and change in a work.

I think he just peaked early. He wasn't given the chance to show it but I fully believe he would have been one of the all time great 2yos. Then he was still very good as a 3yo before tailing off as a 4yo. It happens to horses all the time.

OK thanks, it’s perfectly clear now, he’s better than ever but still has a serious problem. He ran the greatest workout of all time but got outrun early by Gotcha Gold and Wanderin Boy.

Things may be perfectly clear and obvious in your mind, but to others, including Discreet Cat’s connections and his rider, it’s not so clear. They did not draw any conclusions and are quoted as saying they are baffled.

i stand by my contention that whether or not he developed a problem, he was largely an unproven and untested talent due to his limited racing record.

You guys aren't serious.....are you?

Obviously he was supremely talented but a lifetime of a myriad of problems finally caught up to him. You can't honestly tell me you actually believe the Discreet Cat we saw last Fall would have run as poorly as he did recently?

Obviously he doesn't have anything close to an extensive resume of success but just as obviously he was monsterously good when right.

DC
 

Totally agree Scott. This horse ran some very nice races in 2006. His performance in the Cigar mile was unbelieveable. I thought the sky was the limit for him in 2007. Sad he couldn't stay healthy.

Al Quaida put the whammy on him in Dubai...Hopefully he can book based on BSF...I hope for his sake, that Account For The Gold will vouch for him

Horseplayers have a short memory. There was a time not long ago people were calling him a potential all-time great. A couple mediocre performances and suddenly he's garbage

He wasn't garbage but I never thought he deserved a ton of attention. He was good in the UAE, great in the Cigar and that's it. He did give 10 lbs to a bunch of plugs in the Jerome, but at least he did give weight and I give him points for that.

But to be considered as a potential all-time great? No way. Two Grade/Group 1 wins around one turn and no 2-turn wins is not enough.