The Past the Point colt is listed in the DRF although he doesn't have any workouts. The Red Bullet colt isn't listed. I really like that name though. Unbridled Slew. I hope he keeps it.

Rupert I will ask my clocker if hes seen this horse work. Do you remember what he looks like? Color and any markings that distinguish him?

The Red Bullet was a chestnut colt with some white on his face. He is out of a mare named Sookloozy. I know they shipped him to NY after the sale but he could be on the farm right now for all I know.

Well that will make it easy enough. I'll ask him if hes seen a Harty chestnut with white on the face. Those chestnuts stand out pretty good. I'll let you know if he has seen him or if not, when he actually does Rupert.

I fell for this horse after re-watching his debut race a few times, and he just keeps on impressing me. It's just too bad that he and Scat Daddy were coupled yesterday, instead of separate entries.
I was worried when Bejarano got hurt that the new jock might screw this horse up, but when Gomez jumped on, I was relieved.
I'm just excited to see a horse that reminds me (and so many others) of Afleet Alex with his push-button speed and modest pedigree.

If someone other than Prime Ruler wins the Del Mar Futurity, CQ will be your early odds-on favorite for the 2007 Kentucy Derby futures when they come out next month (for better or worse).

Rupert, when you evaluate a sale . Do you make a list of the top ones and rate it best to worst or is it a process of puttig a dollar value on a hip and advise to buy as long as the hip is under your evaluation? Your evaluations are very astute and would love to here more when posible. Im just an old retired firefigher but i envy someone like you that can see more that time and distance. Keep the good post comming.

I don't really make a list of best to worst. I just make a list of the horses I like. At the great sales like FT Feb, Bar Mar, Ocala Feb and March, somewhere around 10-15% of the horses will make my list. At a lesser sale like Ocala April, only about 5% will make my list.

My trainer makes his own list and then we compare our lists. If I have 30 horses on my list and he has about 30 on his list, I would expect that about 20 of them will match. We usually like a lot of the same horses. If we agree on 20 of them, then he will go over these 20 in person with a fine-tooth comb. He will actually kneel down like a catcher and feel their tendons. You would think that most trainers would do this but I hardly see any trainers do this at the sales. anyway, after he's done examing them, the list is usually cut by half and maybe even more for either soundness issues or poor conformation. Let's say our final list is down to 9 horses. At that point, we call our vet and have him go over the horses with a fine-tooth comb. he will scope each horse and go over the x-rays of each horse. The vet will often times not like the x-rays or he may not like the way the horse scopes. After he's done, our list will probably be down to 4 or 5 horses. At that point, we decide how high we want to go on each horse. We may end up buying one or two horses or we may end up getting outbid for every horse. I think Point Ashley was the only horse we ended up bidding on at the Keeneland Sale. We stopped at about $400,000 and she ended up selling for about $725,000.

We only bid on one horse at the Barrett's May Sale. He was a Tribal Rule gelding so we weren't going to go too high. We went up to $100,00 and he sold for $110,000. After watching his training video a few more times the next day, I called my trainer and told him that we made a mistake and that we should have gone higher. Sure enough, the horse won easily when he made his debut at Del Mar. His name is Indian Ashton. He was a real bargain for $110,000.

rupert..you strictly a 2YO guy or do you shop yearlings as well? Just curious.

We buy some yearlings but I am not involved in picking the yearlings. I have no expertise in picking yearlings

Prime Ruler is a very good horse. I have been watching this one since the Barretts May sale because his workout was so good. I was very happy with the way he broke his maiden. I am inexperienced in this sort of thing, but my skills may just be pretty good. Prime Ruler is one of the reasons that I said that Orientate was going to become a major sire earlier in the year. I still stand by this statement.

IMO, Orientate's best workout horse from the Barretts sales has yet to start. In fact, this one is my second favorite workout horse that I have seen besides the Red Bullet colt (although I haven't nearly seen them all). I expect that this Orientate will become a stakes horse if he makes it to the track. I am very confident in him. His gallop is a thing of real beauty.

Albertrani has an Orientate that should win easily next time. I don't remember the horse's name but she ran 3rd in her debut and lost by less than a length going 7 furlongs at Saratoga. It's very tough to win going 7 furlongs first-time out. She was just a little short. I wish she would have won. I had a big bet on her and she was about 12-1. She was from the Barrett's sale too. She was Hip #64. She worked :10 1/5 but she could have gone even faster. She didn't start running her hardest until the jock hit her half-way through the work. You can actually see her accelerate after she gets hit in the middle of the work. If she would have been all out from the start, she would have gone :9 4/5 or :10.

I know the horse you mean and I agree. That one should win next out easily. Looked green and should gallop at Belmont.

I can't figure out why he ran her 7 furlongs first-time out. She has a lot of speed. That's not the kind of horse that you would normally run that disatnce. I don't know why he didn't run her 5 1/2 furlongs.

Rupert, I never get on a guy for losing with a firster, no matter who he or she is.
Albertrani learned a lot from Mott. Although Mott has been much better with 1sters the last 3 years or so, he still doesnt pound on em. I assume Albertrani incorporates what he learned from Mott in his training. It sure didn't seem to hurt Bernadini to lose his debut. A lot trainers like to have a horse fit enough to run its debut and get something out of it, but not cranked up so much that it has to win.
I think its a pretty good way to start em out personally. Perhaps he thinks the horse has enough quality to be really good going longer and wanted to put foundation into the horse to do that. Those really short sprints at 5 1/2 often have blistering paces and I'm not real sure that horses always get a lot out of battling a wicked pace or chasing one.

I think you're probably right. He probably wanted to teach the filly the right way to run. A horse doesn't learn much by getting gunned in a 5 furlong race.

I agree. You can't really teach a horse much in a race less than 6f. Its not the distance they are running, its the pace they are running at. At 6f or longer they don't all come out screaming and whipping and hustling. Pace is more realistic and more like what they will face the rest of their careers in races. Those short ones usually produce crazy paces and everyone has to scream and push hard just to keep up. And if you use one that short as a prep race, the problem is that they can be beaten 20 lengths and come out of the race with a negative view on racing, discouraged by the race.
A trainer i respect who has won hsi share of huge races told me that horses always remember the first race they ever run on the track more than any other. He said if they have a bad experience in their first race that they often never like racing or that it takes a long time to get them to like it.
Chasing or setting a wicked pace and getting beat a bunch of lengths probably isn't a whole lot of fun.
He also said if they learn early that they are supposed to gun themselves as soon as the gate opens that its very hard to correct that as well.

Thanks for the heads up on her Rupert. I didn't know where she was and she was one of the one's on my list along with a few from Keeneland and Calder. That was a very tough spot to put her in first time out. If I had race horses, I would want mine starting at 5 1/2 if at all possible. I also liked Hip #165 (Orientate) from that same Barretts sale that she was in. I liked Hip #64 a lot better than Hip #67 even though Hip #67 went faster than her. And of course, I liked Hip #103 from the May sale.

At Keeneland, my favorite of the Orientate's was Hip #12. He was a more powerful and longer strided horse than the fillies by Orientate. I didn't like Hip #153 at all, but Hip #9 (although she switched leads late) and Hip #169 could do something on the track.

At the Fasig-Tipton Calder Training Sale, I liked Hip #147 and Hip #63 the best of the Orientates. I would have liked hip #113, although he looked very uncomfortable on his front end, and had a high head carriage. HIP #295 was okay, but I really don't expect much from that one. I didn't like HIP #122, #151, or #207.

Still, as good as some of these other Orientate's workouts were and as pretty as some of them gallop, they don't compare to HIP #8 at the March Barretts sale. I could be wrong, but it is my opinion. I am very high on that horse;) .