You make the call.. Classic or Mile for Wise Dan?
 

After another stunning win, where should Mort Fink and Charlie Lopresti run Wise Dan at Santa Anita... Classic or Mile?

My guess is they will go in the Classic, doesn't mean its the right decision. Mr. Fink doesn't have much time left (weekly dialysis) and he is all for taking a shot. Nicest guy in the world.

Every Saturday he sits in the upper tank at Trackside Arlington. He and his boys at one table, and the wives at another right next to them. The wives get more fired up then the guys, its pretty fun to watch.

I would go for the Classic. Though i believe he is a better turf/synthetic horse. That's just to much money to pass up, in a year where there are no standouts.

agree with outofthebox, go for the classic, and potentially horse of the year.

BUT, just saw on b'horse, they say bc mile. either way, i'll be rooting for him!

Mile.

I think some decent horses are lining up for the Classic. Certainly better than last year.

He's a gelding.

He can't win the Classic and there's no breeding upside. It would be shockingly foolish to run him there.

Mile AND the Marathon.

He is a godsend for the sport and I would respectfully disagree and suggest that his being a gelding only adds to the charm.

Do I think he can win?

Yes. Either race. I'd go for the Classic.

That aside he IS the star that the sport so desperately needs so it's only a question of will he be marketed as such or will this be just another missed opportunity?

I've always wanted to mention on here but never had how during the Olympics it kind of made me sick that there were no BC ads. That would have been perfect but no.

I don't mean market him in a using him sense, I just mean so much could be done here where he'd end up being a Smarty or Funny Cide sans Derby win easily.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=OMan4HhRQFI

From that to Horse of the Year.

He is marketing gold. The powers that be need to change anything and everything they've done and start by getting rid of whoever came up with the God awful best is yet to come campaign and start over now that they have their leading man. The whole gelding thing is very catchy and once people who don't know anything about racing understand the point of view you stated about breeding :$: it could endear him even more to the masses.

You can't be serious saying he's the star racing needs. There is no way you really believe that.

He could be marketed as such easily, Kingie.

He stands out.

It's perfect and therefore no one will act on it.

Mile. Looks like he does everything so easy on turf. Did John V. even hit him? I couldn't tell. Looked like he might have gotten a single pop at the head of the stretch.

Never ran a mile and a quarter and he is 1 for 5 on conventional dirt so I would say the BC Mile.

I wanna see him go up against Silver Max in the Mile (would be nice if Frankel would come over too, but I know that dream won't come true). For that reason, run him in the Mile.

There is an AA meeting in Santa Monica right by the fish market, its time to dedicate sometime to cleaning up.

Read your post again its beyond a wrong opinion it is down right scary. You want a marketing campaign on wise dan? As for commercials during the Olympics.. NBC needed to earn not give away space for horseys that have virtually zero ratings save 45 minutes before the start of a derby or 45 minute before the start of the Belmont if a horse is going for the TC.

This horse would be 15 to 1 in the ckassic depending on which euro's show up who is going to beat him at a mile Get Serious and I mean Get Serious.

Thinking outside the box :tro:

Charles Lopresti seems to be one of the nice and deserving guys in racing - he is great when on Steve's show.

star? You are way overrating him. He might be a really good miler but star, not a chance, even if he wins the classic.

I think his best spot is the turf. The classic has has all the glory and he would probably be one of the favorites. However, this horse has been more impressive on the turf, his last at Saratoga he explodeed in the stretch and yesterday he appeared to toy with a decent field waiting just to make his move.

It is really good to see a US turf horse that will give any of the Euros a run and I may be going out including that pretty boy Frankel. :D:)

:)

You are not understanding what I'm saying here.

Yes, a really good horse. Absolutely.

Zippy Chippy was a star... Zenyatta, Makybe Diva, Pepper's Pride. A star can be a great or - just like with people - merely a celebrity for whatever reason.

THis horse is marketable. He could easily be sold to the public.

Do you remember when King Leatherbury needed to raise money for Ben's Cat to go to the BC? That could have been done easily but he didn't go the nontraditional route.

The nonracing public does open it's arms to horses when they are presented a certain way. Think Mike Repole... think Smarty, Afleet Alex, Funny Cide.

OR...

Instead what will probably happen is yet another missed opportunity.

The tracks can go right ahead with their infield activities for kids, face painting, beerfests for the twentysomthings, the image of racing as told to by whatever God awful PR company thought up the best is yet to come campaign. :rolleyes:

If it were up to me? Yes, create public interest with some of the BC bound horses.

In the infield? Jesus is it that hard to think up new and fun stuff?

My idea is like a greenscreen booth... you pay for your kid to go in and be filmed and they come out with a dvd of them winning a race. It's not hard to do.

OR winners circle pictures... you know like on the Queen Mary or Splash Mountain? You can buy the pictures? Not the real winders circle but

At every track have a few ambassadors (bad word this week and I am sorry but can't think of another).

Wasserman is the all time leading earner at Emerald and he came in what, 4th? 5th? afew days ago in some cheap little race.

That shouldn't be. Go the way the owner of Ellis did with Alpena Magic.

Have a few at each track great guests, take their picture with them for a charitable donation.

Make up collectors cards like someone had with Rachel and Zenyatta, hve all the track restaurants give out coloring books with the greats. Have it be really nice for kids so their parents know they can take them without just having a moon bounce in the infield type of stuff.

That doesn't even get into the handicapping stuff but I'm not good at thinking of relatd stuff for that which of course is the single most important part of the game.

What I do know is to think of different demographic groups and play to them... would it be that hard to say get rid of a couple of the silly giveaways like the Sunshine Millions cooler and instead go more the Sha Tin route? They have Ladies Sa Sa Purse day or something like that... they give away like 5 diamonds.

Okay nothin that extreme but what about giftcards to say Sephora or Victoria's Secret, the Apple store? This could work... $100. gift cards per every 1,000 people with the option to switch it out to maybe just an Amex card if you know you're not the Sephora type like some guys may not be.

But you know, there are things the sport could be doing to generate excitement, things it should be doing but ummm okay let's just run the stupid commercial with Frankie singing and perpetuate it as a sport for old white guys and then we can scratch our collective heads and woner why it's dead in a decade or so.

Let's have things like Trackus that most tracks don't use to their advantage.

Let's keep scheduling some big races to go off simultaneously.

Let's never get the starting gates up to date... let's stay the same and never come up with anything new.

Oh and let's remember to laugh at people for at least caring enough to try to come up with ideas.

I.

Give.

Up.

Back to this very nice horse who even has the brother who is a great angle... yes I vote Classic. Racing is about competition... take a chance, go for it, run the girls against the boys, the younger against the older ones and go for the Classic if you have a shot to win it.

He does.

If I asked the general public who Afleet Alex is the majority of them are going to say "who"

If I asked them who "Wise Dan" is they are going to think he is some kind of football prognosticator.

I do think about 25% or so would say they heard of Zenyatta.

The sport needs to marketed as a gambling venture, run like a gambling venture, its the only way for it to grow.

I think the majority of cappers might not agree with this but I would argue that fans have a high percentage of turning in to bettors.

The doors need to be thrown open.

We need to appeal to as many groups as possible.

I was thinking... even something like sponsoring the fillies races... didn't VO5 used to?

Do you know the bidding war that could be created if say Deb, Sightie, Arletta and I took over that account?

When all is said and done do you know the amount of money getting say the female 30 to 60 year old professionals would bring in?

We need to bring ALL of them in.

We need to make it fun and profitable and if getting people to actually go to the track encourages fandom (is that a word?) first for some so be it.

The money will follow.

I already said as far as coming up with ideas for the big angle, the money angle, I'm not one to be creative but I'm sure people who love the sport are instead of bored account execs who don't give a crap about racing googling possible appropriate songs and coming up with (no disrespect to the Chairman, but...) Sinatra.

The gelding thing is a huge knock against him for the Classic. If they want to chase the big money, they should do it in the 2013 Dubai World Cup. His synth turn of foot is striking, and think he'd have a massive shot to make 10F there compared to doing it on dirt v. some that are pointing to the Classic.

While I agree about the Classic, I'd give him even less shot in Dubai.

I'm skeptical about this.

The money didn't follow after Zenyatta retired and her fans were and still are as rabid a fan base as we're going to see. why is this going to be any different?

The people you are trying to target have shown they have little to no interest in gambling on horses. The sport has no problem attracting fans. Its problem is attracting the gambling dollars.

The dubai world cup would be interesting. If he wins it, he would have won 3 different grade 1s on 3 different types of surface in 3 different countries. Rare feat for sure.

The problem is the amount of people being drawn in by true stars of the game is very small compared to the numbers of people who like to wager money on sporting events.

I do think star horses help build the sport, and some of them become betters, we have seen increasing handle the last two years and maybe a few of them were Zenyatta fan's.

Its just never going to be enough to sustain even a fraction of the numbers the sport needs.

i just had someone say 'who' when i mentioned secretariat. and she's about my age.
some people don't know any of them.

The Dubai World Cup is not a Grade 1. For that matter, neither is the Woodbine Mile according to US Gradings.

I think it is a North American Grading System and not US Gradings.

The Woodbine Mile is a Grade 1.

http://www1.drf.com/displayChart.do?...2012091610.pdf

Mine That Bird was allowed entry in the Kentucky Derby solely for earnings from winning one of the few Open Gr stakes for 2yo's in Canada.

Does what we call it even matter? Those are both considered very high class races. If any of our races used wins in a G1 as part of the criteria, the winners would get in I would imagine. As Doug says, the Woodbine Mile is North American G1. Now the Queen's Plate, that is another story.

I guess the Jockey Club of Canada does have separate rules from us.


They have just 5 Grade 1's in Canada:

Canadian International, Woodbine Mile, Northern Dancer,
Nearctic Stakes, and the E.P. Taylor Stakes

All five of these races are run at Woodbine and all five on turf. They almost always tend to attract good shippers from the US and Europe.

Even though they are both technically called Gr 1 races, I had assumed the same grading committee handled both US and Canada races.

Like CJ said, even though the Queen's Plate is the most famous race in Canada, it's not a Graded Stake we recognize because it's not open.

I don't think so, but could be wrong.

Here's the Chart of this years Queen's Plate. The chart has no Grade attached to it because we don't recognize it as a Graded Stakes race.

http://www1.drf.com/drfNCWeeklyHorse...0624&raceNo=10

I did not think any restricted to origin of breeding could be a graded race in the U.S.?

Correct, we don't recognize it.

That's why the Sunshine Millions races can never be Graded as well.

The Woodbine Mile (AKA the old Atto Mile) is recognized.

http://www1.drf.com/row/pps/LEROIDESANIMAUX.pdf


The Queen's Plate won't be. It will get an R inside of a box.




As you can see with Victor Cooley's PP's -- the Molson Million doesn't exist anymore -- but it was recognized as a Grade 1 and a lot of good American 3yo's from the 90's like Skip Away, A. P. Indy, Louis Quatorze etc shipped for it.

Is there even a horse in training right now that has run 10 triple digit speed figures in a row?

I don't think so.

Amazombie has a 99 or better in his last 11 in a row. So, at least one of them is very close.

Caleb's Posse had 4 in a row of 109 or better. Because he's a deep closer, he would have been a fairly safe bet to do it had he not been injured.

Dubai World Cup isnt a Group 1 race?

Who exactly scares you in the Classic if you are Lopresti?

Paul

It's a Group 1 according to the IFHA.

The American Graded Stakes Committee only handles US racing.


I never looked at the IFHA website before today -- They have an International List of Protected Names there.

http://www.ifhaonline.org/resources/NP_2012.pdf

Dirt...probably the eighth pole.....and definitely the sixteenth pole.

And, oh yeah, most of the field.

Other than that, very little.