Commentator to Charles Town Classic
 

"Other noteworthy horses to work at Palm Meadows on Saturday were Commentator, who went four furlongs in 47.85 seconds under Maxine Correa. Commentator, a two-time Whitney Handicap winner trained by Nick Zito, is targeting the Charles Town Classic on April 18. Given the conditions of that nine-furlong race, Commentator would be running for $1 million."

Not the place you'd expect him to begin his season, but hey, if the money's there you have to go.

http://drf.com/news/article/102262.html

NT

1/5 for a million bucks? Yeah, I'd be there too.

This horse is fragile enough and they want to run him on that track? The $$ is defnitely right I guess. We'll see how long he'll be laid up after that one though.

Probably until his return to the Mass Cap in Sept.

Nick Zito should give a jingle to some of the guys that train at CT with regularity and ask them about that surface.

Why do they always avoid the BC Classic with this horse?

To annoy you.

They are all fragile. He ran 5 times last year at age 7, including 2 Grade 1's. Zito always seems to have the horse well placed. The only thing I wonder is how he will handle going 3 turns for the first time in his career.

we might have to make a trip to C-town april 18

I would imagine that he could go 10 turns against the plugs that will be in that field.

Maxine will have him ready. :tro:

you can come watch from the fancy new hotel, overlooking the track.:rolleyes:

No overnights in Chucktown for me

That track has a concrete base...only track in the country with one I think

Every synthetic track now has one as well.

because his chances are slim to none in a race like that, thats why. his last BC appearance was dismal. he is a good horse against a certain field but against the best he is out of his league.

So true. The way Saint Liam drowned him in the 2005 Whitney proved unequivocably that he can't come even close to a top horse. He was so " out of his league " that day that it's embarrassing.

Any chance it was dismal because he was running in a monsoon and the track was a step below soupy?

I watched this race from the winners circle... easily one of the most exciting races/finishes I have ever seen.

It was a miracle that a horse like Commentator, who was clearly out of his league, could even come within five lengths of the future HOY.

He IS out of his league running 6F against the best in the world. His BC at Churchill was no picnic either. Running 7-9F is a different story though.

Please, refresh my memory on his BC effort at Churchill.

Or the fact that he stumbled at the start and was running at a distance nowhere near his best, despite the fact that he's a graded stakes sprint winner?

Gotta love the logic of some people.

Oops.:zz:

that was years ago. how about churchill this fall when the public made him like 2-5 and einstien drowned him at like 5-1(happy day) and he didn't even get second. he is a nice horse no doubt, theres no knocking him hes great for the game, but i don't see him competing in the BC classic at this point in his career. sorry i sounded like i was dissing him but he is not as good as these people think and the big races with top notch fields(recently) have proven this. plus the fact he has to deal with the "goofy" surface if he were to enter. he needs it fast to even have a shot.

He's actually better than many seem to realize, but he isn't winning at 1 1/4 in the Classic, or virtually any legitimate race, in all likelihood.

The bottom line is that Commentator has run more very fast races than virtually any horse hailed on cyberspace as " great. "

Fast as he is - only twice in his long career has he run a Beyer faster than 106 in a Graded stake race.

I think that has a lot to do with the disrespect he gets.

A great race indeed but I really point the blame to Prado on his bad ride. He really thought he could get commentator anytime he wanted but Stevens shut the door on that one.

Yeah, Saint Liam only had the entire stretch to get by Commentator, after Commentator went 1:09 and change for the first 6F.

Prado was clearly at fault. So much so that Dutrow had to use two rabbits to beat Commentator the next time they met.

Those who fall for the rabbit trick are fools themselves.

And yes Prado was at fault so much that he was replaced by Jerry Bailey and I do recall they winning the BC Classic.

Saint Liam ran arguably the fastest race he ever ran in that Whitney.

One can only imagine how fast he would have gone if he didn't get that supposed bad ride.

Agreed. He ran his fastest race but not really benifited from a good ride. If you watch the replay he was making a mad charge with about 100 yards to go and could not win it. Its all about timing the ride perfectly and thats all he had to do but failed to do so.

I'm not sure you can really blame Prado for that loss. For one, they lost by a nose. Another half-jump, jump... they win, and Prado is a genius. The bottom line is Commentator was razor-sharp and controlled that race start-to-finish.

Ironically, I drove from Oneonta to Belmont to catch the Yanks/Red Sox and see the Woodward rematch the following day. Commentator was doomed from the start with those rabbits.

Yeah. He's the Dr Fager of his time.:rolleyes:

Yeah watching that race (Woodward) Commentator had his mind set to take the lead. Stevens wanted to hold him back but just could not restrain him and just let him loose and at that time he was in the middle of two horses dueling for the lead.

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-raci...es-town-racing


-bt-

I thought Gary Stevens won that race, sure a rider is basically a passenger most of the times. But Stevens understood the horse's strength and rode to them.

Has anybody looked at the noms for the CT Classic day next weekend? This is no joke for Charles Town Racing and Slots:

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-raci...-to-ct-classic

IF Einstein ships in, we'll be there.

Let me know if you and the wife go, I think I'm going to go too. :)