Straight from the horse’s mouth..but they don’t know a horse’s head from its ass...

[RolloTomasi]

Before You Get Abused, Criticized, and Accused/Just Race a Mile in Your Shoes

Less than a month before his expected 4-year-old debut in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Mile Handicap at Belmont Park on June 11, Flightline had a familiar pilot for his five-furlong workout in 59.60 seconds at Santa Anita on Monday.

I like the author’s choice of phrasing here. So many ways to go. “4-year-old debut” has a nice ring to it, even though “second to last career start” is probably more accurate…

Jockey Flavien Prat, who has ridden Flightline in all three of his wins, flew from his new base in New York to partner the exciting colt. The workout was the first time Prat had been aboard Flightline since the colt won his stakes debut by 11 1/2 lengths in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at seven furlongs on Dec. 26.

He hasn’t been on Flightline since the Malibu? I guess when they make a movie of Flightline’s career (Best Live Action Short Film circa 2030?) the jockey won’t be a main character since he doesn’t seem to have a hand in the colt’s development…

On Monday, trainer John Sadler timed Flightline galloping out six furlongs in 1:12.40 and seven furlongs in 1:25. The $1 million Met Mile will be the longest race of Flightline’s career.

“Longest race”? To be fair, I’m sure the horse has at least walked further than a mile on most days, probably by a hotwalker that has more of a hand in his training than Flavien Prat. By the way, that last sentence has no qualifying clause…I hope the whole “longest race of his career” thing isn’t supposed to be a final prediction…

“Career”? He has 3 total starts thus far and averages 5 months in-between each. He’s like a train hopper from Steinbeck novel that shows up for the annual wheat harvest to make a little money to keep himself awash in moonshine the rest of the year…

Sadler said Flightline’s recent training has focused on getting the colt to show patience in the initial furlongs of a workout.

That’s smart since he is going to go a one-turn marathon distance next out. Double smart spending all that time teaching him to settle and then putting up a jockey for a critical work who hasn’t been on the horse for over 5 months…

“We’ve put a lot of work in getting him to relax,” Sadler said.

I’ll say…no race for nearly 6 months? I’d be pretty chill, too.

“He looks like he’s going in a mere gallop.

Most of the time, he looks like he’s just standing in his stall…

He’ll always have speed to get position. He doesn’t have to be a front-runner.

Yeah, he’s looked mighty vulnerable winning by the length of the stretch each time after setting the pace.

Good idea to try to tweak his running style…whatwith the whole extra furlong to navigate…

We’re dialing in.”

Hopefully most racing fans haven’t tuned out by now…