9/3 (SAR): Woodward, Forego, Personal Ensign (G1's)
 

1st (1:00) Paris Opera S.

1 Mile (Inner turf) | Fillies and Mares | 3 Year Olds And Up Stakes | Purse: $75,000

1 Unbridled Essence Lezcano J 121 L
2 Hit It Rich Solis A 119 L
3 Ultimate Class Castellano J J 119 L
4 Bet On the Blue Madrid S O 119 L
5 Sea Road Velasquez C 119 L
6 Thundering Emilia Dominguez R A 121 L
7 Deluxe Castro E 119 FTL
8 Sugar Again Maragh R 121 L
9 Evading Tempete (GB) Velazquez J R 119 L
10 It's Tea Time Garcia Alan 119 L



8th (4:39) Personal Ensign Invitational S. (G1)

1 1/4 Miles | Fillies and Mares | 3 Year Olds And Up Stakes | Purse: $300,000

1 Acronym Lezcano J 116 L
2 Ask the Moon Castellano J J 120 L
3 Pachattack Maragh R 116 L
4 Protesting Velazquez J R 116 L
5 Super Espresso Dominguez R A 116 L
6 Tiz Miz Sue Rocco J S Jr 116 L



9th (5:12) Forego S. (G1)

7 Furlongs | Open | 3 Year Olds And Up Stakes | Purse: $250,000

1 Jackson Bend Nakatani C S 124 L
2 Sidney's Candy Velazquez J R 124 L
3 Golddigger's Boy Elliott S 124 L
4 Jersey Town Velasquez C 124 L
5 Hamazing Destiny Albarado R J 124 L
6 Escrow Kid Castillo O O 124 L
7 Aikenite Castellano J J 124 L
8 Regal Ransom Dominguez R A 124 L
9 Rule by Night Cohen D 124 L



10th (5:45) Woodward S. (G1)

1 1/8 Miles | Open | 3 Year Olds And Up Stakes | Purse: $750,000

1 Ice Box Lezcano J 126 L
2 Mission Impazible Velazquez J R 126 L
3 Giant Oak Bridgmohan S X 126 L
4 Rule Castellano J J 126 L
5 Convocation Maragh R 126 L
6 Havre de Grace Dominguez R A 123 L
7 Flat Out Solis A 126 L
8 Mambo Meister Jara F 126 L

What a fantastic card Saturday!

"3lbs!!??" -Rick Porter

Kidding, but she has her work cut out for her for sure. Great racing all day though, wish I were there.

Win or lose, glad they took a shot with Grace.

Agreed.

Interested to see how Sidney's Candy runs in the Forego. He's seemed up until this point to be a horse that's good at a lot of things but not great at anything.

Woodward-
Filled with horses who are picking up weight, quite a bit in some cases, except HDG...

I like HDG and Mambo Meister exacta box...

Forego-
Exacta box Jackson Bend, Sidney's Candy, Aikenite...

Personal Ensign-
Appears to me they are all going to be breathing fore about 9f mark, so I go with the horse who at least has won going this far,(I know, different surface) Pachattack...

Convocation! Im all in on this one. Nice allowance win last time, and thinks today is the day he will finally take that next step as a legit graded stakes horse. Time to cash in on that Jerkens longshot in a big race at Saratoga!

Sidney's Candy is free money btw. He runs anything decent he wins this, another horrible G1 race

Interesting race from the daughter of super broodmare Hasili today.

Huge race by Jackson Bend. Excellent job by Nick Zito with this one. Tough meet, but a Grade 1 should help.

Big fan of Jacks or Better Farms, they continue to breed very good horses with very average mares/sires.

They also know how to enjoy themselves at the track. Fun group, nice to see the "little guys" doing well.

I don't think he was beating the winner anyway, but Hamazing Destiny deserved better than he got from Albarado. He sucks.

How decent was that?

I laughed.

Nice run from Havre de Grace but I want Flat Out going forward...

Ambitious spotting paid-off... but now what do you do? Don't you sorta have to keep going and head to the BC Classic?

I wonder do the fillies themselves get as intimidated facing the boys as their human connections do? The last few years have shown us over and over again that if given the chance, they can do this with regularity. I could see if the males were Alysheba and Sunday Silence and Formal Gold, and Holy Bull. Then you might be wise to avoid them. But Tizway and Flat Out and Giant Oak? I would rather take them on instead of Blind Luck. I'm happy to see her connections rewarded for not staying conservative and taking a chance where most "experts" said she'd have no chance.

Blind Luck would be a clear favorite in the Distaff if she goes in the Classic -- would like to see the BL-HDG rivalry continue (either with both in the Distaff or both in the Classic)

I laughed.

that was pretty horrible, looks like the move to Pletcher hasnt done much

Had nothing to do with any trainer. This was a stupid placement in my opinion. It reminded me of what Zito used to keep doing with Commentator. Sidney's Candy has good speed for route racing but not for sprinting unless he gets a really light field that he totally outclasses. Like Commentator, he'll always be drowned in top class sprints. I thought he'd have had a much better chance in the Woodward.

I can't believe anyone said she had no chance. She was 8-to-5 on the morning line -- and had run four Beyers of 105 or more in her last six races -- the rest of the entire field had four combined.

Other than Flat Out and Tizway -- the older males are puke. She beat one of the good ones today.

A lot of excuses have been made for the males of the last three or four years - they've been slower than freaking molasses.

Yet -- you hear how we aren't supposed to compare their figures with figures from past groups.

Since Beyer figures have been published in 1991 -- the last four Breeders Cup Juveniles run on a dirt surface have recieved the four highest winning Beyers in the history of the race.

War Pass, Street Sense, Uncle Mo, and Stevie Wonderboy -- would have all drowned horses like Arazi, Favorite Trick, and Unbridled's Song on Beyers. Yet, we are supposed to pretend that the older males of late (who have been about 10-to-12 points slower as a group than par past groups) are as good as they've ever been?

The great Bayakoa failed both times against males. The great Lady's Secret was just 1-for-7 lifetime against males. Horses like Precisionist and Quiet American could run figures in the mid 120's... how many females in history have done that? The answer is zero.

Zenyatta could have but she always "just did enough to win."

If Grace runs in the BCC, hopefully network tv finds something else to talk about than Eight Belles.

I doubt Eight Belles gets rehashed by network tv.

I suppose ESPN might if they want to be annoying.

You didn't watch Versus today. It was brought up multiple times.

That's pretty lame.

What do Eight Belles and Havre De Grace have in common other than the same owner and trainer?

It was lame. They kept bringing up how it was the first time Larry Jones ran a filly against males since Eight Belles.

I was more surprised that Randy Moss seemed to think Sidney's Candy could make a clear lead in the Forego. He's a very astute pace analyst so I found that very surprising.

If you're an avg viewer -- what's that supposed to mean?

Good? Eight Belles ran a clear-cut 2nd at double digit odds. Maybe that means HdG will also outrun her odds.

Bad? She broke down. Maybe HdG is at some kind of added risk.

It's totally much ado about nothing. If they need to talk about something like that .. they have too much time and the telecast should be shorter.

He must be working on some new figures for turf racing or something. I don't know.

If you can't believe anyone said it, go look at the thread on the Delaware Cap when it was suggested her and BL should be facing males. We were told that they wouldn't have a shot against the likes of Tizway, Flat Out, Morning Line, Friend or Foe, and Rail Trip.

As I said earlier, if we were talking about real top class males, that would be different but we aren't. We are talking about the high priced claimers marauding as grade one horses these days. Horses like Blind Luck and HDG might be a couple of steps below the likes of Go for Wand, Personal Ensign, Bayakoa, Paseana, and Azeri.......but the older males are a couple of floors below the good older males of the past that were running 115+ on a regular basis.

Personally, I feel like it's totally irrelevant to mention what Lady's Secret did against Turkoman and Precisionist when discussing HDG's chances against Giant Oak and Flat Out or BL's chances against Game on Dude and Acclamation. These older males now are a joke, a bad one at that, and they barely are faster than our fastest 2yos so why not take shots against them?

super weak edition of the Woodward, in any case whatevs. Kinda sad when Tizaway is the top handicap horse in the east, makes me wanna cry when I think Awesome Gem is possibly the best older horse in America.

I actually went back and read that thread. Since I didn't see anyone saying what you are implying, could you please provide an example of what you are describing here?

No one said they would have no shot against those horses. What was disagreed with is Havre De Grace and Blind Luck are the two best dirt horses in training. Big difference between saying that and what you are saying.

I'm glad I went back and read that thread though because I was able to relive your description of the Delaware Handicap. "Magical theatre." That'll never not be funny.

Hmm. Right on page one, ateam said BL, HDG, and Awesome Maria would all be competitive in the Whitney, to which Mr. Serling promptly replied that they wouldn't. When ateam asked which older males, other than Tizway, should they be worried about, ntamm gave us Rail Trip, Morning Line, and Friend or Foe. Serling said that would be a good start, seemingly suggesting there were even more. He even mentioned Sidney's Candy. He also wondered why anyone would hypothesize about HDG beating top males and talked about BL being campaigned against females because she could realistically be competitive against top males.

Maybe the words no chance weren't used but the point was very clear.

The thread you are talking about and the posts were in the middle of June, which was a month before the Delaware Handicap and almost 2 months before the Whitney. Obviously things change weekly, if not daily and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess both Andy and Nick had Havre De Grace as the 2nd best horse in the race today beforehand.

But, while we are on the subject of that thread, I found this exchange pretty interesting.

To which you responded

Hmmm....It's always easy to be smart after the races. But you know that.

Ok so I had the thread wrong. The point doesn't change that it was being said they'd have no chance.

Also, I'm not sure what point you are making about that exchange. It was a simple question with a simple answer. I would have been in favor of them trying the Whitney and after watching how Tizway ran, I assumed HDG at best could have been second. To which I also said there is no disgrace in that. It's the mentality that second is a disgrace that is a big part of the problem in the game today. Even if she had been second, that would have shown that she could have been competive, which those others where saying she couldn't be.

I agree with the second is a big thing concept. As for BTW and Nick suggesting that a filly couldnt competite with males especially them is insane. What does sex have to do with talent and speed?

No real surprise you don't get the point. You were more interested in saying "gotcha" than actually looking at what and why was said. Plus your sexist stuff is just plain hilarious. It's wonderful theatre on your part.

The point is, when the comments were made initially, Rail Trip and Friend or Foe had just recently made their first starts off long layoffs and ran nice figures. Morning Line hadn't bombed in both his Monmouth and Saratoga races. Morning Line is much better than he had showed in those races and so are the other two.

As I said, things change pretty quickly in this game. Our opinions change and need to change as quickly as we express them based on what happens. So congrats on thinking she had a chance 3 months ago and then admitting she would have been probably 3rd in the Whitney. You sure showed them.

Pretty lame, but expected, crap from King Glorious.

For the record, I picked Havre de Grace second and said she and Flat Out were the only two I would use in the Pick-4.

Oh, I also said Sidney's Candy had no shot whatsoever in the Forego...and have been clear on not wanting him going forward since Todd Pletcher lost confidence in him in late July.

Like Dahoss said, and King Glorious ignored in his desperate attempt to alter the truth in order to try to knock others in a perverse ( and failed ) attempt to make himself look better ( this shouldn't be hard...though he still seems to find it elusive ), things change, often quickly, in this game.

The point was missed. Only you are the ones missing it....while at the same time making it. The point was that at the time, the suggestion that Blind Luck and Havre de Grace couldn't compete and shouldn't compete against the boys because they couldn't be competitive was silly.....because of how quickly things change. The point was that if top males were to run their best races, the numbers BL and HDG were running probably wouldn't be good enough but with the inconsistency and fragility of the males, the chances of them running their best races are always pretty low so why not take a chance when you've got two mares that you KNOW will bring it everytime.

No, you have once again twisted what was said for God knows what reason.

The point, at that time, was that the previously mentioned three fillies couldn't beat the field being assembled for the Whitney. They couldn't have. That has not changed.

You actually take the time to read his half a page post?