The Week in Review

Accelerate | Benoit

By

That slight tremor you felt at about 6:06 p.m. Pacific time Saturday was the racing world bumping slightly off its axis. Arrogate (Unbridled's Song), widely acknowledged as the world's most-accomplished and highest-ranked active racehorse, ran drastically flat and threw in an inexplicable clunker, running fourth at 1-20 odds in the GII San Diego H. at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club.

Rest assured the rotational flux is only temporary, though. No matter how big the upset or how highly heralded the vanquished favorite is, the racing world always seems to do a pretty good job of getting back into the groove and spinning in the right direction in short order.

Day-after reports from trainer Bob Baffert indicated that Arrogate–who had won the Grade I quartet of the Travers S., Breeders' Cup Classic, Pegasus World Cup Invitational, and Dubai World Cup in succession–did not suffer from any major physical setback or injury, and that the 4-year-old gray will be on target to make his next scheduled start in the Aug. 19 GI Pacific Classic at Del Mar. Baffert, in several published comments, blamed himself for not training Arrogate aggressively enough.

This week we close in on the 100-day mark to the Breeders' Cup. The GI Pacific Classic in four weeks carries extra race-over-the-track emphasis in 2017 because it's a “Win and You're In” qualifying race and Del Mar is hosting the world championships.

The 8 1/2-length San Diego H. winner Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky), who was third in last year's GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, might find the 10-furlong challenge of both the Pacific and Breeders' Cup Classics to be a touch outside his comfort zone, distance wise. But it's an interesting side note that Accelerate has now finished ahead of Arrogate twice: Both debuted on Apr. 17, 2016, at Los Alamitos Race Course, running second and third, respectively. That maiden defeat by Westbrook (Congrats) was Arrogate's only other lifetime loss from nine starts.

Prior the San Diego H., Arrogate was listed at as low as 1-2 odds to win the Breeders' Cup Classic in racebook future-bet offerings. With a sense that his stranglehold atop the older male division is no longer vise-like, expect interest in the Pacific Classic from some new shooters who might otherwise have avoided Arrogate had he run true to expected form on Saturday.

But the depth chart for top-tier older male American horses is not particularly deep right now. Beyond the capable, dependable, but not exactly scare-away-the-competition MGSW Gun Runner (Candy Ride{Arg}), you have to cast an eye toward the solid cluster of 3-year-olds to find the next level of aspirants clamoring for a foothold as they mature out of the Triple Crown season and take aim at facing elders.

The 3-year-old division should get a double dose of clarity this coming weekend: GI Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming (Bodemeister) and GI Preakness S. victor Cloud Computing (Maclean's Music) are listed by Saratoga Race Course among probables for Saturday's GII Jim Dandy S. Among the probables listed by Monmouth Park for the GI Haskell Invitational Sunday are Irish War Cry (Curlin), McCraken (Ghostzapper), Battle of Midway (Smart Strike), Girvin (Tale of Ekati), Practical Joke (Into Mischief), and Hence (Street Boss).

Lady Eli Again Overcomes Adversity

The first Grade I race of the season at Saratoga Race Course, the Diana S. on Saturday, produced a corking three-way photo finish that was satisfying to watch from both a tactical standpoint and the sentiment surrounding the winner, Lady Eli (Divine Park).

Pace-making Quidura (GB) (Dubawi{Ire}) gamely held sway into the homestretch of the nine-furlong turf test before being double-teamed by Chad Brown trainees Lady Eli, who was patiently handled before pouncing authoritatively with a churning outside run, and Antonoe (First Defence), whose jockey, Javier Castellano, banked on a narrow inside passage that never fully materialized.

Both Antonoe (jogging off a bit) and Lady Eli (quickly in the hands of an assistant starter) provided mild pre-race drama by popping open the gates of their starting stalls just prior to the race going off.

“You can probably walk through the grandstand here and talk to the people who actually wager their money every day, and they'll tell you most of the times that happens they don't win,” Brown said of his stablemates' pre-race antics. “[Lady Eli] just overcame that much breaking through the gate. A remarkable performance. The fractions were solid enough, but then again I know this horse on the lead is a real quality horse. What I liked at that point was that she was alone back there. I felt confident that Irad [Ortiz Jr.] could at least give her a clear run in the stretch and that's all I asked in the paddock. If you just get her clear, I'm confident she'll get there, and she did.”

Lady Eli's story will always be emotionally compelling considering she was away from racing for over a year in 2015-16 after stepping on a nail and developing laminitis in both front feet. She has since not only recovered from that life-threatening predicament, but has regained top form after her owners opted to keep her in training for 2017 instead of retiring as a broodmare. So far this year she's earned two wins and a second (losing by a head) from three Grade I starts.

Mourning Two Gritty Geldings

The July 18 euthanization of the hard-hitting 11-year-old gelded sprinter Ben's Cat (Parker's Storm Cat) after complications from colic surgery was mourned far beyond his Maryland base. The 26-time stakes winner, who was not yet a month into retirement, was such a fan favorite that he routinely received deliveries of gift baskets of high-end horse treats from admirers. Breeder/owner/trainer King T. Leatherbury once described the star of his stable as “every bit of a real good classy horse [who is] very well-behaved, but he knows he's a big shot.”

One reason railbirds were attracted to Ben's Cat was his uncanny knack for winning via tight photo finishes, even when he looked hopelessly beaten a furlong out. Thirteen of his 30 lifetime victories were decided by margins of less than a length. The gelding's four Maryland Horse of the Year titles and 17 divisional state championships (older male, turf horse, and sprinter) are even more remarkable considering Ben's Cat suffered a fractured pelvis late in his 2-year-old season that kept him from debuting until age four. Leatherbury felt so ambivalent about him early on that he started Ben's Cat for a claiming tag in his first two races.

“We didn't think he was anything special,” Leatherbury said in a 2015 TDN interview about his 32-time winner. “I actually ran him for $20,000 and $25,000 claimers. At that time, we didn't think he was any kind of a decent horse. But once he won eight races in a row, then we knew we had something…. I think what benefited him is the fact that he did not run early in life, so he had time to mature. [That] gave him a chance for everything to set up nicely, and it's helped him last long.”

In one of those odd coincidences of timing, the death of Ben's Cat was preceded by 48 hours by the peaceful passing of 26-year-old Nebraska-bred gelding Leaping Plum (Lightning Leap), who between 1993-2004 generated a similar cult-like appreciation for sprinting dominance on small tracks throughout the Midwest. In particular, Leaping Plum ruled Fonner Park, where his half-mile track record of :44.20 remains intact.

Ben's Cat and Leaping Plum started getting mentioned in the same sentence several years ago when Ben's Cat was en route to winning six straight runnings of Laurel Park's Mr. Diz S. But Leaping Plum is believed to be the record-holder for consecutive wins of the same stakes race with seven: He romped in the Grasmick H., a four-furlong dash held during the early-winter part of the Fonner season, every year between 1995 and 2001. After finishing third in the 2002 edition, Leaping Plum returned at age 12 to win the 2003 running, making it eight lifetime Grasmick wins.

Daily Racing Form, which first reported the death, quoted a Facebook posting from Jon Moss, the son of Leaping Plum's trainer Joseph Moss: “He passed quietly in his sleep out in Nebraska. He ran up last night, as is typical with his herd-mates for his grain, and this morning was laying peacefully in the pasture. Few people have had near the impact as this animal has had on my life. Funny how it can be that an animal impacts in such a large way.”

Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.

Copy Article Link

X

Never miss another story from the TDN

Click Here to sign up for a free subscription.