Race Date

Posted by Avram Freedberg

At this point it looks like Ahvee’s Destiny is pointing to a 5 furlong turf race at Gulfstream Park on April 22nd. Linda would prefer to keep her in Florida with a relatively short trip to the track compared to vanning her to Kentucky for the Keeneland race, even though that purse is $100K and the Gulfstream purse is $45K. She won her first race back from “vacation” last year at Gulfstream against the boys. This year the race is for fillies and mares 4 years old and up.

Holy Blitzer had her knee X-rayed again. Bottom line is there is no change in the condition of the knee since her surgery. We will enter her in the June OBS sale and pull her out of it, if she shows some promise while training. She is a really handsome specimen.

Often, people ask about how the horses are bought. Basically, Linda picks them out. It’s a real hit and miss process. Since it’s Kentucky Derby time, everyone is focused on the contenders for this year’s Derby. Steve Haskin (www.bloodhorse.com), the noted turf writer, tells some interesting stories about this year’s crop of possible entrants. Old Fashioned was viewed as a top prospect and sold for $800,000 as a 2-year old. He won his first four in a row. Win Willie had nice breeding but his conformation was questionable. He sold for only $25,000. He handed Old Fashioned his only career loss a few weeks ago and paid $115.60 to win!

Another story is about a trainer and owners who had bought a yearling in each of two prior years out of a sire named Comfort Zone. They paid $360,000 and $250,000 for these two horses but they were both failures. When they went to the next sale, they were going to buy another colt from Comfort Zone but decided it was not such a good idea based on the prior failures. The comfort Zone colt went for $80,000 and was named The Pampelmousse. Instead they bought a colt from the sire, Even the Score, for $160,000. As fate would have it, these two hooked up in a stakes race called The Sham Stakes last month. Of course, The Pampelmousse beat the colt now named Take the Points by 6 lengths.Sheik Mohammed of Dubai bought a horse for 16 million dollars a few years ago. The horse, called The Green Monkey, looked handsome but never won a race.

Isn’t this a fun business? It doesn’t necessarily matter how much you spend. Of course, it’s the “rags to riches” stories that keep punters like me hoping for the big score.

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