Most Exciting
 

Who is on your list of the five most exciting horses in training? Mine are:

Gamine, Nashville, Life is Good, Charlatan, and Maxfield. Prime Factor just missed the cut.

Maxfield is still in training?

That’s a lot of training.

He's scheduled to race Saturday at Fair Grounds,

Not necessarily 'exciting' but some unheralded horses or those with something to prove to look out for:

Mystic Guide
Forza di Oro
The Sound
Idol
Creed
Darain (GB)
Independence Hall
Performer
Silver State

The first four are all interesting, especially Forza di Oro. Creed disappeared after two perfect trip wins while supposedly prepping for the Jim Dandy. It will be some Malibu if Independence Hall ever runs back to his Nashua.

Forza di Oro looked absolutely loaded during the first half mile of the Discovery, didn't quite explode down the stretch the way I anticipated but he won clear nevertheless. Wonder if Mott will consider the Big Cap with him since Gulfstream cutback their handicap to a flat mile a few years back.

I've never seen Creed run and he doesn't have any comeback works yet, so not sure of his status, but certainly bred in the purple.

Independence Hall put up a workman-like score in his comeback so he needs to improve but he could get a solid setup in the Malibu if Charlatan and Nashville decide to throw down immediately from the gate. I haven't seen Silver State's races but he won both comebacks and he too would get a good setup in the Malibu behind a speed duel. Idol is nominated to both the Malibu and the San Antonio; I'd prefer the former but his last race was 9.5f so they'll probably use distance as a nominal excuse to avoid the dustup on tap and shoot for the latter.

I thought Maxfield ran ok. I wasn't as impressed as I was in some of his earlier races. Didn't like the way he ran down the lane. They've got six months to get him tightened up for his next race.

Tough for a horse to look too much better in a debut than Prate did yesterday.

My guess is he was a little short for the race and the lack of pace had him closer than he normally is. I’m with you that I wasnt blown away but at the same time thought it was a solid comeback. He won’t have to improve much to be a major player in that division though.

That much is true. He may not have to improve at all.

Creed supposedly suffered a very minor injury while training for the Jim Dandy. Shug said he’d be out about 60 days, and that we could see him late this year or early next. As it’s been way past 60, and he hasn’t worked, I’m not sure when or if we’ll see him. I like him a lot; his allowance win came after a much shorter (3 weeks) break (after his maiden win) than Shug wanted, but he ran him because it was a straight 3 year old race. I thought he ran well, but probably it wasn’t his best - Shug said he was acting up before, and that’s why he was going to give him some time before his next race (which would have been the Jim Dandy). If he make it back, Creed is very promising, but I don’t make any predictions; like so many horse, he could be the real deal or he could just not be as good as I thought.

He’s closely related to Happy Saver, as their dams are half-sisters and their third dam is Weekend Surprise.

Both horses are examples of the Rasmussen Factor; Weekend Surprise appears close up in their pedigrees on both the sire and dam sides through different horses (Lassie's Legacy, A.P. Indy).

Rollo, you're good at explaining things to make them make sense. Can you help me with this one? This is Asmussen talking about Nashville:

"Part of the thinking of running him in the Perryville instead of the Breeders' Cup Sprint was the opportunity to run in the Malibu and here we are," said Asmussen.

Asmussen wasn't sure how good the horse is and is only worried about getting a Grade 1 victory so he can cement a high $$ breeding right from Winstar. Hedged his bets that the Malibu would be easier than the BC Sprint, plus he gets a 4 lb break in the weights for not having won a graded stakes.

Really though, who knows what sorts of contingencies and agendas Winstar has? Maybe they would want to retire him if he won the BC. They aren't running Global Campaign in the Pegasus because the interest in him as a stud has already maxed out and it would be too risky to expose him to a loss in the Pegasus. Also, if Nashville had won the BC Sprint, maybe they figured they would be the favorite for the sprinter Eclipse and not want to risk the horse losing at 7 furlongs for the Malibu.

And the Speightstown line is not known for soundness so perhaps they anticipated a hard race in the BC with a plan in place to rest the horse afterward regardless of the result.

Darain made his US debut a losing one, running 2nd as the favorite with 1st time Lasix in a turf allowance race at Fair Grounds.

Interesting race as he just missed by a 1/2 length from off the pace but was 7 lengths clear of the 3rd place finisher. Fairly unusual for a turf race. Final time was in range of the course record.

It was a good rags-to-riches or David and Goliath story, too. The winner, Two Emmys, broke his maiden for a $20K tag and was sold for a mere $4,500 as a yearling. Darain on other hand, out of the great racemare Dar Re Mi and by uber-stallion Dubawi, sold for over 1000x that when purchased for $4.8 million.

Two Emmys wasn't completely lacking in pedigree, though. His second dam was a full sister to grass champion Sunshine Forever.