Jackson Bend

[Calzone Lord]

Nick Zito on Jackson Bend's performance: “He’s great this morning, but he was mad yesterday,” Zito said of Jackson Bend, favored yesterday at 4-5. “He just doesn’t want to run outside. He loves to run on the fence, he loves to split horses, but that’s the way it went. We’ll try to regroup and hopefully come back in the Forego.”

I can't believe Zito overlooked that the track was "cuppy" yesterday.

The slow early pace and the tactics of Dominguez on Crossbow are obviously the main reason he didn't perform up to his par yesterday.

One thing people often forget about Jackson Bend was that he was a tremendous 2-year-old.

He won the Frank Gomez over D'Funnybone (who came to NY and won the Saratoga Special by 10+ lengths and the Futurity by 4+ lengths over clear 2nd place finisher Discreetly Mine for Dutrow Jr. in his next two starts)

After that, Jackson Bend went on to sweep the entire Florida Stallion Series at Calder. He completed the sweet in the $400,000 In Reality Stakes, where he overcame a bad stumbling start, and a dreaded clear wide trip to win with a 100 Beyer in victory. A big figure for a 2yo router.

Here is the video of that neat performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTBBu4OAVTU

He's a pretty nice horse. Very good 2-year-old. Beaten less than a length by Lookin At Lucky in the Preakness at age 3. Grade 1 winner at 7 furlongs at both age 4 and age 5.

The last time he raced beyond 8.5 furlongs on the dirt -- he finished 2nd in the 9.5 furlong Skip Away Stakes at Gulfstream despite breaking from tough post 11 and having a wide trip throughout and against a slow pace. Future Breeders Cup Classic winner Drosselmeyer and future Big Cap and Foster winner Ron The Greek finished 4th and 5th in that race.

He's what passes for a durable and versatile top class horse today. Give him a fast and contested pace going 7fs and I think he will be fine if he has to sweep outside of horses.