Good work on the Super.
Also good work by a lot of the posters on this board who were monitoring the
flight of Summer Bird even going into the Derby. The combination of unseasoned
horse/unseasoned trainer made this colt very hard for me to consider, but his
TGs seemed to put him right in the mix.
Belmont attendance announced at nearly 53,000, not bad considering the economy
and the fact that NYRA really did not promote the event. It is amazing to me
that an additional 70,000 - 90,000 would have attended if a Triple Crown was to
be decided.
Undercard:
TRUE NORTH -- Fabulous Strike (by Smart Strike) reminds me of Groovy, a NY based
sprinter from the late 80s. FS may be the greatest horse ever stabled at scenic
Penn National. As a big fan of this gelding, I am hoping Todd Beattie can keep
FAbulous STrike together next year as a 7YO so he has a chance at a BC
championship on a natural dirt surface. What makes FS so tough is that very few
horses have the initial acceleration he does in the first 100 or so yards of
the race and it is very hard to deny him the front end.
JUST A GAME/ WOODFORD MANHATTAN -- Angel Penna and Chris Clement have been 2 of
NYs top turf trainers year in year out over the last few years; they are both
currently in the middle of amazing runs, so the results of these races were not
surprising.
I was a bit confused as to what the true condition of the turf course was. For
the fourth race, the Inner Turf was listed as \"soft\"; for the seventh race, it
was listed as yielding. The Widener Course was listed as \"yielding\" for both
races. Kent Desormeaux did two interviews on ESPN. After winning over the Inner
turf, he said the course was not as soft as he thought it would be; after
winning over the Widener in the next race, he mentioned that the course was
boggy (horse sinking into their knees, he said) in certain spots.
My impression from watching the races was that the huge divots which one
usually sees flying up on a soft turf course were not evident; the fractional
and final times of the turf races, in my opinion, reflected turf courses which
were probably \"good\", and runners who like a little give in the ground had no
advantage yesterday.
WOODY STEPHENS -- Munnings turned in what was in my opinion the most impressive
performance of the day. Will be interesting to see whether TAP tries to stretch
this one out or will point him to the big sprint purses. In what turned out to
be my best prediction of the day, This One\'s For Phil got another tortured trip
from post position 1, his third in a row.
BELMONT -- My approach was to downgrade the colts in the race which were
lightly raced and/or NW2LT, so of course the race is won by the lightly raced
NW2LT Summer Bird. Tremendous accomplishment for Birdstone, who I believe stands
for 10K to be represented by Mine That Bird and Summer Bird, who accounted for
2 legs of the Triple Crown.
Birdstone was sired by Grindstone. Grindstone was sired by Unbridled, winner of
the 1990 Derby for Mrs. Genter. A nice homage to 2 of the grandest grand dames
of the turf, the deceased Mrs Genter and Mary Lou Whitney.
