[dellinger63]

really want Major to enter and answer at least half of the owner's dreams. The other half would be winning.

‘RHYTHM’ METHOD: ALL DISTANCES, TURF CONDITIONS AT ARLINGTON
Who’s the local horse with a legitimate chance against the world’s best grass horses in Saturday’s 24th running of the Grade I Arlington Million?

That would be James Messineo’s Major Rhythm, who was ignored five weeks ago in Arlington’s Grade III Stars and Stripes Breeders’ Cup Turf and stung like serpent with a $73.40 win price. The same Major Rhythm who has won 33 percent of his starts at Chicago’s Northwest oval that include distances from a mile to a mile and a half, and won over Arlington Park courses rated from “firm” to “good” to “yielding.”

Oh, by the way, Major Rhythm, trained by Ed Beam, a former Arlington Park outrider, would be ridden in the Arlington Million by Hall of Fame jockey Earlie Fires, Arlington’s all-time leading reinsman and the man who has been Arlington’s jockey champion six different seasons.

“He’s always loved the turf course here at Arlington,” said Beam of Major Rhythm, who ran fourth beaten three lengths for all of it in Arlington’s 2002 Grade I Secretariat Stakes, and third beaten six in last summer’s Grade III Arlington Handicap on Million Preview Day.

In fact, Major Rhythm loves Arlington so much that he was entered in last Saturday’s $150,000 Sea o’ Erin Breeders Cup Mile (eight furlongs) even though he was coming off a win at 12 furlongs in his previous start here.

“There was just too much speed in there for him,” Beam said of Major Rhythm’s Sea o’ Erin scratch off the program. “Tom Proctor’s horse (Sea o’ Erin victor Therecomesatiger, owned by Charles Patton) and that Canadian horse (Sea o’ Erin runner-up Le Cinquième Essai, owned by William Scott) are both real good horses going a mile, and that’s not my horse’s best distance.

“So now we’re thinking about the Million,” said Beam. “We’re considering it, depending on how the race shapes up, and what happens with the weather the rest of this week.

“Everyone says that English Channel (probable Arlington Million favorite if he runs) is staying in Saratoga (for Saturday’s Grade I Sword Dancer Invitational),” Beam said, “but I’m not sure I believe that. Why would he want to run there for half the money if he can run here in Chicago in a million-dollar race? If he (English Channel) does stay there, we’d probably run here, but if English Channel comes here, we’ll probably try to go to Saratoga if we can make arrangements to get there in time. We have been invited there.”

Incidentally, although no Stars and Stripes winner has ever come back to win the Arlington Million in the same year, Leslie Combs II’s Rossi Gold, back-to-back Stars and Stripes winner in 1981-82, came back to run in both those Millions, finishing eighth the first year and 10th the second.

Also, 2001 Stars and Stripes winner Falcon Flight, owned by Gary Tanaka, came back to run fifth in 2002’s five-horse photo Million, beaten two necks and two noses for all of it.