Horse racing

A day at the races

If you’re like me and enjoy looking for those young horses that could develop into stars, this is one of the more exciting days of the fall, with a full card of 2-year-old races at Churchill and two major stakes for juveniles at Aqueduct. In addition, of course, there’s the Cigar Mile, one of the highlights of the holiday.

Aqueduct

Sky Diva, of course, stands out in the Demoisel. She won her debut by 10, took the Frizette with a powerful move in the turn and only moderate encouragement down the lane and then ran third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Every Breeders’ Cup winner on Santa Anita’s Pro-Ride track had been running on either turf or on a similar synthetic. No horse successfully made the transition from dirt to Pro-Ride.

In that context, Sky Diva’s performance in California was exceptional. And now, of course, she returns to the dirt, where she’ll probably enjoy a perfect stalking trip and appears to have a sizeable talent advantage. But her odds going to be very short, and so the question becomes, if you concede her the win, how to play the Demoisel – key her in multi-race investments or on top in a multi-horse wager. The Canadian invader, Springside, is an intriguing possibility to complement Sky Diva. An improving filly, Springside could pick up some lucrative pieces after Sky Diva puts away the speed, Ain’t Love Grand.

Old Fashioned, the Remsen favorite, is one of the more exciting horses racing today. An $800,000 yearling purchase, he won his last by more than 15 lengths, and for his stakes debut he finds a field that has no proven stakes performers.

When I first saw this colt, I was so impressed I immediately telephoned his trainer, Larry Jones. He’s cutting back his stable, leaving some horses in the East while he goes down to New Orleans. And although I thought I knew the answer, I asked if Old Fashioned would be going with Jones to Fair Grounds. Old Fashioned, the trainer joked, could live in his apartment if necessary, but would definitely follow him to New Orleans.

Jazzandthemagician, by the way, will remain in Kentucky to run today at Churchill. And that will probably leave Atomic Rain loose on the early lead. He hasn’t raced beyond five-eighths, and so it’s difficult to imagine his being a factor late in this nine-furlong affair. Still, he could complete the trifecta. The two Todd Pletcher horses, though, Idol Maker and American Dance, are the most probable candidates to offer Old Fashioned a challenge. Idol Maker won his debut at a mile, and American Dance, a son of A.P. Indy, should step forward at this distance.

The Cigar Mile promises to be a great race. Monterey Jazz, who injured the foot of his right hind leg while preparing for the Met Mile, returns to competition. And at 6-1 in the morning line, he’s an intriguing possibility. Conditioning is a question; he enters this after two three-quarter-mile works in California. But his trainer, Craig Dollase, said the speedster has been training “lights out” and appears to be as good as he was back in the spring. He has the speed to lead these at least into the lane. Kodiak Kowboy, the somewhat surprising 7-2 favorite in the morning line, should get a perfect stalking trip. But he never has won beyond seven-eighths. And so from here, Bribon becomes more enticing at 6-1. He has run the two best races of his career at a mile. He’ll probably have to rally from a little farther back than is normal for him, but he has the ability to defeat these. And in the company of such popular horses as Storm Play, Arson Squad, Harlem Rocker and Tale Of Ekati, Bribon could be overlooked. Bribon and Monterey Jazz – they look like the play from here.

Churchill

Trainer Kenny McPeek appears poised for a big day, starting with Passion Du Coeur in the first. The Distorted Humor filly looks to be a solid key for the Daily Double, with, in the second, The Best Day Ever, One Hot Toddy and Satin Thunder.

Silver City is one of several highly regarded colts in the third race. A $700,000 yearling, he has good speed and could grab the early advantage. His trainer, Bret Calhoun, said he has been trying to teach the colt to control his considerable speed, but Silver City remains headstrong. And in a field without much speed, he’ll probably be on the early lead. With a victory, he’ll be aimed at stakes competition in New Orleans.

McPeek could get make another trip to the winner’s circle after the sixth, where he’ll send out Best Lass. She hasn’t raced since the summer. But she ran close to Rachel Alexandra and defeated C.S. Silk in a maiden race, and they’ve both gone to stakes success. Given the natural improvement a 2-year-old make this time of year, Best Lass
should be few lengths better than when she was last seen, and she could control the pace. Glacken Queen looked very strong in her recent victory in Louisville, and she’s an attractive possibility to complement the exacta.

Sara Louise is the one beat in the Golden Rod. When she won the Pocahontas, she ran about three lengths faster than Capt. Candyman Can the same day in the Iroquois. Dream Empress, the runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, will probably be the second-choice in the wagering, but she never has raced on dirt, and so from here the play seems to be Sara Louise over Rachel Alexandra and War Echo. Rachel Alexandra finished second to Sara when they last met. And War Echo, a half-sister to Pyro, ran fourth in the Frizette. Steve Asmussen regards her as one of his most promising young horses.

Capt. Candyman Can is unbeaten on dirt, his only loss coming on a synthetic surface. And he could still be unbeaten on dirt after the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes. In the Iroquois, he stalked a lively pace and then drew clear, and unless somebody takes a major step forward he appears to have significant talent edge. Jazzandthemagician could be a threat if he’s allowed to slow the pace down, and Brother Keith, who bristled with potential when he won his debut, appears dangerous.

  

Grading stakes: Now, that's entertainment

Nobel Prize winning novelist V. S. Naipaul begins “A Bend in the River” by saying, “The world is what it is.” And Bill Parcells, along with many others who perhaps don’t even realize they’re simplifying Naipaul, has frequently and famously said, “It is what it is.”

Well, horse racing takes a more modern view: It isn’t what it is. The Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, for example, which, oddly enough, has never been run at a mile on the dirt, isn’t a Grade I race, even though it is a Grade I race. See? And the Arkansas Derby isn’t a Grade II either, although it is.

The confusion is the result of a rash. The sport suddenly has broken out in a rash of Roman numerals, with 488 graded stakes for 2009, seven more than this year. In an annual event that’s starting to become as disturbingly absurd as the Darwin Awards (by the way, did you hear about the priest in Brazil who attached himself to 41 helium balloons and floated out to sea?), the American Graded Stakes Committee on Tuesday announced its grading of stakes for next year.

I assume some people still care about the grades, but it’s hard to know why since the grading becomes increasingly ludicrous each year. It isn’t what it is. (By the way, did you hear about the guy in Florida who took a joyride in a shopping cart – while holding on to an SUV?)

For next year, there will be five more Grade I races. (Six were upgraded from Grade II and only one downgraded for a net increase of five numeros unos.) Now, just ponder that development for a moment. Do you think the racing has been so good and the horses so outstanding in recent years that the only way to reflect this pandemic greatness is to add and then add some more and just keep adding (for several consecutive years) Roman numerals until the stakes calendar looks like a bedizened hussy. (By the way, did you hear about the guy in Croatia who cleaned out his chimney with a hand grenade?)

The problem is the process. (Actually, the process is only the main problem, if you overlook for a moment the very real problem that most of the upgrades happen to be at racetracks well represented on the American Graded Stakes Committee and on its committee of racing officials who rate the stakes. Del Mar’s Thomas Robbins is on both, for example, and Del Mar, just coincidentally, will have two stakes upgraded to Grade I.) To start, the process uses the number of graded stakes winners in a field as a major statistical consideration. And, well, that’s simply illogical. It's essentially a tautology. It begs the question: It’s like saying, These are major stakes horses because these are major stakes horses. And since there are more graded stakes every year, there are more graded stakes winners running in stakes every year, and so by this method the AGSC grades more and more stakes every year, and racing just keeps getting better and better and better and – but it isn’t what it is.

Andy Schweigardt, secretary of the AGSC, explained in a teleconference Tuesday that when considering a race’s grading the committee looks at five years. Or maybe two years.

And so the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, also known as the Ironic Mile, will be a Grade I event next year, for its third running, along with the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint. But the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf will be only a Grade II, all of which is nearly as amusing as races calling themselves “The World Thoroughbred Championships” even though they don’t really attract horses from throughout the world or, in some cases, have any championship correlation or implication. It isn’t what it is. (By the way, did you hear about the guy at the Belgrade Zoo who jumped into the bears’ cage to offer one of the animals a beer?)

And it just gets funnier. The stated purpose of the AGSC isn’t to limit the field for the Kentucky Derby or fill empty heads with Roman numerals or dress out a bedizened hussy or even provide annual entertainment; no, the purpose is to “maintain the integrity of the sales catalogue.” Now,  for the most part, the horses racing in major stakes in 2009 won’t have any offspring at the sales until at least 2012. Are those the sales catalogues whose integrity desperately needs protecting?

If so, what’s the hurry? Why grade the 2009 stakes in 2008? Doesn’t it make more sense – if the purpose is really to maintain any integrity at all -- to grade races after they’ve been run, after you know who’s in the field and after you’ve been able to evaluate the horses in the context of their accomplishments?

“It’s done this way,” Schweigardt said, “so there’s some certainty.”

Ok, but doesn’t everybody in horse racing know that in this game "Certainty" is another name for the Easter Bunny? Still, the AGSC could provide some modicum of certainty. It could assign minimum grades --  most of them II or III, with only those races that tradition recognizes as unimpeachably major and historically significant getting a Grade I – until the end of the year. And then couldn't the AGSC go back, evaluate and assign higher grades where the quality insists on such status? For the integrity of the grades, for accuracy, shouldn’t races be graded after they’ve been run? But, of course, that wouldn't work because it isn't what it is. (By the way, did you hear about the guy who crashed his snowmobile into the side of a mountain while chasing a jackrabbit?)  

Euroears returns

For the first three months of the year, Euroears was one of the more exciting horses around. The flashy chestnut won a stakes in January, moved to the turf to win a stakes in February and then returned to the dirt to win another in March, pushing his resume to six wins with nary a blemish or even a threat on his record.

Well, he returns to competition Saturday at Churchill Downs, in the Bet On Sunshine Handicap. It’s a minor stakes, although he’ll take on a major horse in Kelly’s Landing. But it’s just the start. Euroears’ trainer, Bret Calhoun, said he’ll point the colt at some major stakes in the upcoming season. And Euroears could be that kind of horse.

One morning in early March, at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans, I bumped into jockey Ramsey Zimmerman, who had been riding Euroears and would ride him again in a couple of days, in the Duncan F. Kenner Stakes. I asked Zimmerman about the horse, and intended to put the usual questions to the jockey: How’s Euroears training, how will he respond if he doesn’t make the early lead, has he improved this winter? But I didn’t have to ask: Zimmerman’s confidence told me all I needed to know. His pleasure of riding the horse just overflowed. Euroears, he said, was incredibly fast but also extremely smart, and the horse had learned to relax and take a deep breath and then to rely on his ability. He had learned, in other words, to be a racehorse.

Well, I’m always skeptical.  And I wondered if Zimmerman had seen the overnight. Euroears was in with Semaphore Man, a multiple stakes winner and one of the best and most accomplished sprinters in the region, as well as Noonmark, King of the Roxy and Les Grand Trois. The Duncan F. Kenner wasn’t graded, but it was one of those races that probably should be graded in retrospect: Even if the race wasn’t adorned with a Roman numeral, only a genuine major-league stakes horse was going to win.

When Semaphore Man jumped out to the lead, Zimmerman and Euroears just let him go. I was shocked. Euroears, who had blown fields apart with his speed, rated without protest, and Zimmerman sat as chilly as an oyster on the half-shell. As I recall, Semaphore Man got away with an easy lead in rather casual, for him, fractions. I didn’t think anybody could run him down under those circumstances.

But in the turn, Zimmerman moved his hands to give Euroears the signal, and within a blink they had caught and run right by Semaphore Man. Euroears ran the final quarter-mile in 23.51 seconds to win by more than three lengths, and he completed the six furlongs in 1:09.27.

It was a stunning performance. A few weeks later, however, while preparing for the Texas Mile at Lone Star, Euroears injured himself – a hairline fracture to a hind leg.

 “He seems like the same horse to me,” said his trainer, Bret Calhoun, about Euroears’ comeback. “He’s still push-button; he shows the same kind of acceleration and speed. He has the same great mind.”

Owned by Jim Helzer of Arlington, Euroears is by Langfuhr, the sire, of course, of Lawyer Ron, and out of Unky And Ally, who won the 1997 Sorority but never won again. She was by an Alydar stallion of very modest accomplishment named Heff.

 Euroears, in other words, will have to make his own pedigree. But he has enough pedigree to suggest he could take his talent beyond three-quarters of a mile, and he has the mind and speed to imply he’d like to give it a try. Calhoun said stretching out remains a possibility for Euroears. He could become an exciting miler, dirt or turf.

But, of course, he’s all about excitement, always has been. From the first day I saw him, when he worked a jaw-dropping half-mile and galloped out five-eighths at Lone Star in 59, to his debut, when he won by 9 1/2 lengths, through his series of stakes victories and right up to this very moment, as he prepares for his comeback, Euroears has been nothing but exciting. And I suspect he’ll continue to be exciting as he redefines himself in competition, starting Saturday.

Curlin's place in history

What is Curlin’s place in racing history?

That’s the question Steve Byk and I were discussing Wednesday, when I was on his radio show, “At the Races.” It’s a tough question,and we struggled with it for several minutes, comparing Curlin to some of the great horses of the past. Comparisons, I think, have to be based on an accumulation of accomplishments and not just displays of talent.

Consider the case for Ghostzapper. He displayed superlative talent. His performance in the Breeders’ Cup Classic was arguably the best in the history of the event. But he raced only 10 times in his career. Only once did he race 1 1/4 miles, only twice around two turns. And so while I concede he’s one of the most talented horses of the last 20 years, I couldn’t include him among the all-time greats.

On the other hand, any comparison based entirely on accumulated accomplishments will favor horses of the distant past simply because they generally had longer careers and more demanding campaigns than modern horses. It’s not fair to Secretariat to argue he didn’t accomplish quite as much as, say, Whirlaway. They both swept the Triple Crown, and both repeated as Horse of the Year. But Whirlaway, a champion of the early 1940s, raced 60 times; Secretariat had only 21 starts. The quantitative differences in their careers have as much to do with the times that produced them than with the horses themselves. But, of course, nobody would suggest that Whirlaway was better or more talented than Secretariat or that he deserves a higher place in history's esteem.

Then again, even the most logical polemicist will tend to favor athletes with whom he’s familiar over those who are just names in a history book. Who today remembers that a 3-year-old filly named Twilight Tear beat Devil Diver in the Pimlico Special or that Exterminator won half of his 100 races? Quite a few folks probably have such knowledge stored in some valued cerebral cabinet, and so an unawareness of history may be less a problem for racing, where fans generally have a profound respect for the game’s past, than for other sports, but it remains a concern. And so what about Curlin?

Steve, a discerning observer and a knowledgeable historian, compared Curlin to Holy Bull, who’s generally regarded as one of the top 100 horses of all-time, but probably not among the top 50. Sensational in his 13 victories, Holy Bull on his best day was, I suspect, as talented as Curlin, and so the comparison may be valid, as far as it goes. But Holy Bull was dismal in his two losses, discounting his final race, where he was injured. Most important, Holy Bull never won a Triple Crown race, nor did he win a Breeders’ Cup race, and so his accomplishments don’t stand up to Curlin’s.

But if not alongside Holy Bull, where is Curlin's place in racing history? Hard to say, but a horse’s career can only be analyzed in the context of his own time, his own era. And in this context, Curlin’s career sparkles. After all, he just became the richest horse ever to race in North America and the only one ever to put together consecutive $5 million campaigns. It's useful also to recall that only four horses ever won a Triple Crown race and the Breeders’ Cup Classic in the same year: Sunday Silence, Unbridled, A. P. Indy and, of course, Curlin.

Only eight horses ever have repeated as Horse of the Year: Challedon, Whirlaway, Kelso, Secretariat, Forego, Affirmed, John Henry (1981 and 1984) and Cigar. (Kelso, of course, was Horse of the Year five times, and Forego three.)  In Thoroughbred Champions: Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century, published by Blood-Horse, all of those horses are ranked in the top 38, with Challedon being No. 38.

Curlin, of course, hasn’t repeated as Horse of the Year yet. But given his accomplishments of 2008, he’s deserving of the award. And all of that, I think, provides a useful context for finding Curlin’s place in history. Certainly one of the best horses to come along in the past 25 years, he deserves to be included in the top 40 of all-time.    

Where exactly in the top 40 is unclear, but that status alone should suffice, for it certainly means he deserves to be called one of the sport's best and greatest. But I can't help but think we got only a glimpse of his greatness this year, that we saw the best of Curlin for only a moment. And for most of us it was a glimpse from afar, when he won the Dubai World Cup. A weak handicap division didn't challenge him, didn't bring out his best. Yes, he was one of the best, and he might have been even better than that.

Nothing like Stolis Winner

For exhiliration, few things can compare to a world-class quarter horse doing his thing. Nothing’s like it. It’s an extraordinary combination of athleticism, power and professionalism. And that’s exactly the combination Stolis Winner brings to the racetrack. He’s a spectacle.

With another victory, on Nov. 29, Stolis Winner will become the richest quarter horse in history. He easily won tonight at Lone Star Park, and his clocking, 19.622 for the 400 yards, made him the fastest qualifier for the $1,154,802 Texas Classic Futurity, which will be run closing day at Lone Star.

“He’s one of the most professional horses I’ve ever been around,” said his jockey, G.R. Carter Jr., who had to give the powerful gelding only token encouragement.

Prior to the start of Stolis Winner’s trial, a horse got loose behind the gate. And that delayed the start a moment. But once the field was completely loaded into the gate, Stolis Winner was instantly focused, Carter said, and left the gate with a burst seizing control. When the doors of the gate sprang open, Stolis Winner seemed to lower himself, as if dropping into gear; he had a clear lead by mid-stretch and then cruised, going down the track like a lazer.

“He’s such a big horse and a such a long horse, it amazes me how quick he is,” Carter said.

The performance was even more remarkable given the changing conditions. Not only was the start delayed, but for the early trials, there was 15 mph tailwind. The wind suddenly died down to nothing just before Stolis Winner ran.

Owned by Jerry Windham of College Station, Texas, and trained by Heath Taylor, Stolis Winner has won eight of his nine races, his only loss, by a nose, coming in his second outing, where he got bumped around at the start. He has won the Heritage Place, Rainbow and All-American Futurities to earn nearly $1.8 million, making him the richest 2-year-old in the history of quarter horse racing. And if he wins Nov. 29, he’ll push his bankroll to $2.3 million, surpassing the great Refrigerator, the richest of quarter horses, who won 22 of 36 starts and earned $2.1 million.

Here are the qualifiers for the Texas Classic Futurity:

1. Stolis Winner – 19.622
2. Mr Queens Mystery – 19.686
3. Double Chiseled – 19.689
4. King Brimmerton – 19.731
5. Mighty Corona – 19.786
6. Streakin Six Cartel – 19.842
7. First Down Mr Jess – 19.864
8. Specially Alluring – 19.882
9. Cuz Eye Said – 19.925
10. Thecoloroftheblues – 19.950

Texas Classics

Easy Dashin Sixes was the fastest qualifier tonight in the trials for the $383,756 Texas Classic Derby, which will be run Nov. 29, closing day, at Lone Star Park. He sprang out of the gate and won the eighth race easily, completing the 440 yards in 21.308.

Here are the 10 qualifiers:

1. Easy Dashin Sixes – 21.308
2. Coronas Leaving You – 21.356
3. Quickid Corona – 21.391
4. Dmnv Mountable – 21.444
5. Separatist Baby – 21.458
6. Romancing Mary – 21.481
7. Rebas In The House – 21.553
8. Moonshine Memories – 21.568
9. Rock Solid Jess – 21.604
10. Coronas Easy Dash – 21.605

The nine trials for the $1,154,802 Texas Classic Futurity will be run Saturday at Lone Star Park. Among those entered is Stolis Winner, who in his last outing won the All-American Futurity. A winner in seven of his eight races, he already has become the richest 2-year-old in the history of quarter horse racing. And he could become the richest quarter horse of all –time, passing the great Refrigerator, if he wins the Texas Classic Futurity on Nov. 29. A closing-day victory would put Stolis Winner's bankroll at $2.3 million. Refrigerator earned $2.126,309 while winning 22 of his 36 races. 

Is Sheikh Mohammed really good for racing?

Is Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum good for racing? American racing I mean.

Just asking the question implies skepticism. And the question will no doubt excite a vigorous protest among the many people Sheikh Mohammed has enriched. Of course he’s good for racing they will say, but by that they really mean he’s good for them. Not necessarily for racing.

Is it good for American racing to take Midshipman, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner, to Dubai?  How about Vineyard Haven, the Hopeful and Champagne winner? Of course not. Is it good for racing to retire classic winners such as Bernardini and Raven’s Pass prematurely? Is it good for American racing to buy Street Sense and Hard Spun and then whisk them off to a stallion farm before they’re even full-grown? Of course not.

And so is Sheikh Mohammed good for American racing?

His goal, as he once explained in a Blood-Horse interview, is to win the Kentucky Derby his “own way.” And that way, of course, is to train his Triple Crown prospects through the winter in Dubai. It’s ideal for the purpose because no training time is lost to bad weather – ideal, that is, except for being halfway around the world.

Sheikh Mohammed aspires to see the blue silks of his Godolphin stable in the winner’s circle at Churchill Downs. I hesitate to say he dreams of such a victory, but perhaps he does, for indeed many people have dreamed of seeing their silks in the middle of a roseate scene on the first Saturday in May.

But Sheikh Mohammed has taken his pursuit of this goal to an unprecedented level. The only thing that prevents his quest from being obscenely self-indulgent is what he has done in Dubai. He hasn’t been good for American racing, but he has been very good for Dubai racing, building facilities that that are unsurpassed and creating a festival of racing that’s dazzling. And racing will get only better there, only more spectacular, in 2010, when his new racetrack opens.

Horse racing is a negative-sum game: For every winner there are several losers. And Dubai’s victories have meant losses for American racing. Sheikh Mohammed has routinely raided America looking for prospects and then taken them home; he has routinely retired stallion prospects before they’ve fulfilled their potential on the track. That’s not jingoistic; that’s recent history. And how many American horses and trainers will take up residence in Dubai over the  next few years?

I applaud Dubai for all its success. But except for the owners and breeders who have sold Sheikh Mohammed horses, American racing has not gained from his love of the sport. American racing has lost. America’s racing fans have lost, too.

But his passion for the game is unimpeachable, his resources unapproachable. And so more than anybody Sheikh Mohammed indeed has the potential to be not just good, but great, for racing. For that to happen, he simply has to recognize and acknowlege his responsibility to American racing.

Innocence can be alarming

The names are changed, or rather withheld, to protect the innocent. Culpable perhaps, but certainly innocent: She didn’t know any better. And she didn’t know any better because this happened at what just might be the most ineptly run racetrack in the country.

I was there recently for a major stakes race.  I arrived Wednesday night, and early Thursday morning – the race was to be run on Saturday – I visited the stable area in the hope of seeing some of the horses and chatting with some of the trainers involved. But first I had to stop at the main stable gate because, well, I didn’t have press credentials. (And my owner’s license in this state had expired.) Apparently the track didn’t issue press credentials, just as it didn’t bother to provide any details about its showcase race, as I would learn later that day, not so much as an overnight (which lists the horses entered) in the press box, or a work tab, or even a crouton of useful information. If the Associated Press had telephoned to ask who was entered, nobody would have been in the press box to answer the phone. In fact, even members of the working press were locked out of the press box. I had to get somebody from the maintenance department who just happened to be around at the time to let me in.

Anyway, that morning I checked in at the main stable gate. Somebody at least had given security my name, told them to let me in. I explained I was there to see the competitors for the upcoming stakes, naming a specific trainer and horse I hoped to write about. The stall superintendent, who happened to be there, was an old acquaintance, and he vouched for me.

“Ok, I guess you can go in,” the security officer said, as if doing me a favor, “but only on one condition.” She reached under the counter, perhaps into a drawer or a bag, and pulled out a piece of candy. She told me that the trainer I hoped to see wasn’t here yet, but that the horse had been here for a couple days, and that I could gain admission to the stable area if I agreed to give the horse this piece of candy. “He loves these,” she said, knowingly.

I tried not to seem flabbergasted, although I was. As I began to explain that it probably wasn’t a good idea for me to give the horse anything, not even candy, especially not two days before a race, with the trainer nowhere around, another security person jumped forward. He was presumably of higher rank, or at least he regarded himself as such, and he made a show of authoritatively insisting that horses are never to be given anything by visitors or security guards. They never have been given anything, never are and never will be. Never, never, never.

Well then, I wondered, how does a security guard at the main stable gate know this horse loves candy? Or does she just think all horses love candy, and why would she think that?

The stall superintendent gave me a ride back to the stakes barn in his golf cart. As we rode, he spoke about the upcoming race – he was very interested, even if track management wasn’t – but I didn’t hear much of what he had to say. My head was swirling. She was probably somebody’s favorite aunt, this security guard who had asked me to give a horse some candy. She no doubt regarded such generosity as an act of kindness. And it was doubly kind to enable a stranger  to take credit for it, if only in the horse’s eyes. She obviously had no idea of the possible repercussions. She didn’t know you could buy hundreds of items or more in a grocery store that could possibly lead to a positive test. When she thinks of a drug positive, she probably imagines egregious dope, administered in a syringe surreptitiously by beefy, shady characters in sunglasses. She doesn’t think of candy. But, of course, in this age of zero-tolerance, which is a synonym for zero-intelligence, even innocent gestures of kindness can have damaging consequences.

She just didn’t know. Nor did it occur to her that anybody aware of her generous inclinations could sabotage her kindness by lacing the candy with something sinister. She didn’t know because nobody told her.

And nobody told her, as I learned later, because this was the most inept operation in racing. Or was it?

I hope so, simply because I’d hate to think there’s one worse. On the other hand, this track might not be much worse than many. Whenever I hear somebody argue that horse racing is a dying sport, I have to think, given the widespread ineptitude, what’s truly amazing is that horse racing isn’t a dead sport. It perseveres only because of the great fans who love it and the great horses who define it.

As good as ever, but not at Santa Anita

Europeans “dominate at Breeders’ Cup,” proclaims the headline on the BBC website. The “Sporting Life” even speculates that the “home team,” meaning Americans, may not be so eager to take on the Europeans in next year’s Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita.

Do they expect us to sit on the sidelines and let them win all  the races? Maybe. William Hill is already offering 9-2 odds on Goldikova to repeat in next year’s Breeders’ Cup Mile.

This may forever remain a semantic disagreement, but from this point of view, winning five of 14 races isn’t dominance, especially when two of the races, the Marathon and the Juvenile Turf, were virtually created for the Europeans. They did indeed win more Breeders’ Cup races than ever before, more than their participation might have led anybody to expect, and their horses performed superbly and admirably. But dominance?

The European victories at Santa Anita a week ago don’t represent a derogation of American racing. Europe’s success in the Breeders’ Cup is most simply and succinctly explained by the simple fact that they brought over some very good horses. Then there was the Pro-Ride surface, which the Europeans seemed to appreciate. And then there was the medication, or rather the absence of medication, specifically steroids.

Or was that really a factor? I don’t know. But I suspect it wasn’t much of a factor, if one at all.

From several sources, I’ve heard and read suggestions that Curlin lost the Classic because he isn’t quite the same horse he was last year, meaning not quite as good, and, further, that he’s not quite as good because he’s no longer on steroids. But I can’t find much to support the first part of that argument, which seems based largely on visual impressions.

I make my own speed figures and pace figures, but the Beyer numbers, since they’ve become common coin in handicapping, would probably serve better to make the point that Curlin was at least as good this year as last. I don’t mean to suggest that speed figures are definitive, but they do, I think, provide a useful measure of performance. And by that measure, in his graded stakes last year – and that’s tossing out only his maiden win – Curlin’s Beyer speed figures averaged 107.25.

In his graded stakes this year – and that’s tossing out only his first outing in Dubai – Curlin’s speed figures for the season averaged 110. (I’m giving him a 117 for the World Cup, which seems a solid, although conservative, number based on what we know about Well Armed and A.P. Arrow, who finished third and fourth in the race.) And in graded stakes on dirt  – that’s tossing out the Man o’ War on turf and the Classic on Pro-ride – Curlin’s speed figures this year averaged 112.25. (Zenyatta, by the way, averaged 102.4 this year.) Curlin lost three races on dirt last year; none this year.

As for the steroids, I doubt that he was ever on them. Yes, early in the year, when the sport made a conspicuous display of renouncing drugs and embracing popular virtue, Jess Jackson, Curlin’s principal owner, said he would instruct his trainer, Steve Asmussen, to take all his horses off of such meds. And from that it was widely assumed, even reported, that Curlin had been on steroids but would be no longer.

Well, I doubt it. When Jackson and his partners bought the horse and transferred him to Asmussen, Curlin had to weigh close to 1,200 pounds. I saw him the very day he joined Asmussen’s stable at Fair Grounds in New Orleans. He was enormous. If he gained any weight, he was going to be doing beer commercials.

Curlin has never been injured, he has never left an oat in his feed tub, and he’s naturally assertive. In other words, he’s the last candidate in the world for steroids.

Curlin was as good as ever this year, but just not at Santa Anita. Not on Pro-Ride. As for the Europeans, they won because they were good enough, but they were hardly dominant.