• 2 days ago
Transcript
00:00So this week's weekend preview is highlighted by the Alabama Stakes, which will be run on
00:11Saturday at Saratoga, one of the most historic grade ones, if not the most historic grade
00:16one, outside of the Kentucky Oaks for three-year-old fillies.
00:19We're going to get the rematch of Nest and Secret Oaks, it looks like.
00:23Nest absolutely dusted her in the CCA Oaks, but Secret Oaks is the Oaks winner.
00:29And I think that she'll have a better showing this time around, and hopefully we get one
00:33or two more horses, and it's not a four-horse field, but I'm not going to hold my breath
00:36on that one.
00:37The Alabama is the big race, we also have the Delmar Oaks, which we'll talk about after
00:41the break.
00:42We get the Lake Placid at Saratoga, and the Smart and Fancy, which I just mentioned in
00:46the XBTV bit.
00:48Any thoughts from you guys on the Alabama?
00:50Yeah, it looks like there's going to be five in there, Joe, and we'll know later on today.
00:54Nest, Secret Oaks, Gerrymander, Nostalgia, and Goddess of Fire.
00:59One of the good things about Saratoga so far is, there's a lot of races that included showdowns
01:06or the best of the best going against one another.
01:09Well, I guess you could say you got that in the Alabama as well with Nest and Secret Oaks,
01:13but from the standpoint they just talked about, I'm really looking forward to what happens
01:19on the racetrack.
01:20To me, Nest thrashed Secret Oaks in the coaching club, and it doesn't look like any of these
01:26other horses are good enough to compete with her.
01:30She's going to be one to five, two to five, and there's really no reason to expect that
01:34she would get beat.
01:37Back after she won the coaching club, the connections opened the door a crack about
01:40the Travers, and I really wish they would have done that.
01:44That's from a standpoint of wanting there to be big storylines and big races.
01:48If you're going to be one to five in a grade one with, I believe, a $600,000 purse, I can
01:53see that.
01:54That's just too much to give up to be four to one or something like that in the Travers.
02:00Nest is a terrific filly, but I just don't see any reason why this race won't be a carbon
02:04copy of what happened in the coaching club.
02:06Joe, you mentioned a couple other races, but Sunday's the Queens plate, by the way.
02:12Looking forward to that.
02:13The favorite is going to be a filly named by the name of Mora, who comes off a big win
02:18in the Woodbine Oaks.
02:20Fillies have won the Queens plate 37 times in its long history, and she's got to beat
02:26a horse by the name of Ron Doerr, who won the prep for this up at Woodbine, but it doesn't
02:32mean a whole lot to Americans, but to Canadians, this is their Kentucky Derby, and it's Kentucky
02:36Derby Day.
02:37It'd be fun to watch the Queens plate on Sunday and Nest win, presumably, in the Alabama.
02:43Then, I guess, unfortunately, won't that be her last race before the Breeders Cup Prom?
02:48I don't know that for a fact, but the way things are going and the way Todd Pletcher
02:51has campaigned his horses, he did the same thing with Malafat last year, so why would
02:55she come back and anything in between?
02:58I don't think it's going to happen, so we'll see what she does on Saturday.
03:02There's one more undercard race that I wanted to highlight, and that's the Skidmore, which
03:07is for two-year-olds going five and a half on the turf.
03:09You say, John, why would you care about a listed stake?
03:11Well, number one, it's a Saratoga stake, so it does have some interest to us on the East
03:16Coast, but also, it's been run six times, guys, and five of the winners, five of the
03:23last six winners, have all been entries in a Breeders Cup juvenile race, so it is a legitimate
03:30stepping stone.
03:31Even though it's only a listed stake, it is a legitimate stepping stone for the winners
03:36to come out and then run in either the Breeders Cup turf sprint, the juvenile turf sprint,
03:41I should say, the juvenile turf, or try to transition over to the dirt and run in the
03:47overall juvenile.
03:48So, it is an important race.
03:49You've got horses like Averly Jane and Golden Pal and Flame Away.
03:55They all utilize that race to go from there up into bigger and better things in the Breeders
04:00Cup races.
04:01Well, and thank you to Bill for bringing up the Queens, but I did not mean to slight our
04:05Canadian listeners or any wood-buying fans.
04:07It's obviously a big race, and we're going to watch it on Sunday.
04:10I was scanning the stakes fields and was only looking at the graded stakes.
04:14Obviously, the Queens play a million dollars, but it's restricted to Ontario breds, so that's
04:18– or is it Canadian?
04:19Is it all Canadian?
04:20It's Canadian.
04:21I mean, there's, I think, 98% of the good horses in Canada are, but if you got a good Saskatchewan
04:26bred, bring them on down.
04:27They'll let them run in the Queens play.
04:29Exactly.
04:30So, yeah, we'll keep an eye on that as well.
04:32We're going to get to the rest of the races that we're looking forward to this weekend
04:35after this break from Three Chimneys.
04:37Three Chimneys' outstanding young sire, Gunrunner, has several maidens to watch out for this
04:41week, including Outperform, who runs on Friday at Saratoga for Todd Pletcher and Rapali Stable.
04:46Gunrunner had his latest TDN Rising Star last week with Disarm, who broke his maiden for
04:50Steve Asmussen and Ron Winchell at Saratoga last Saturday.
04:54Gunrunner now has five TDN Rising Stars, and his list of Grade 1 winners already includes
04:59champion Echo Zulu, Cyberknife, Early Voting, Tayba, and recent Amsterdam Stakes winner.
05:05That's a Grade 2.
05:06But recent Amsterdam Stakes winner, Gunnite, he was a Grade 1 winner last year.
05:10So I was looking at the TDN sire list last week, the top sires of three-year-olds this
05:16year.
05:17Gunrunner is so far ahead of everybody else, including Into Mischief.
05:21It's just wild to see him in only his second year have those kind of stats for three-year-olds.
05:27He's obviously had a tremendous, tremendous start to his career.
05:30And like I said last week, I think that the stallion farms are going to start snapping
05:34up those Grade 1 winners to stand the first really good sons of Gunrunner as well.
05:38And it just goes to show, you know, we talk about there's too many stallions overall in
05:42the country.
05:43When you get one like Gunrunner and they can kind of reshape the breed in this short amount
05:48of time, it really is a special thing.
05:50That's what everybody is looking for.
05:51So we'll be right back after this message from Three Chimneys.
06:22Dream with us at Three Chimneys.
06:30And it's all Tyler's Tribe to the final furlong.
06:33He's putting on another show tonight.
06:35He is eight lengths in front.
06:37Now it's 10.
06:38Now it's 12.
06:39Tyler's Tribe pouring it on as they come down to the line.
06:40He's going to win by double digits.
06:41And he stops the clock in 104.
06:42All right, just to put a little bit of a bow on this weekend, this week's weekend preview
06:59presented by Three Chimneys.
07:01We also have the Delmar Oaks on Saturday, which is a Grade 1 for three-year-old fillies
07:05on the turf.
07:06It goes a mile and an eighth.
07:09Interesting field.
07:10I think it's going to get a pretty big field in that race.
07:13That's one of the things I like about those three-year-old turf filly races.
07:17I think in general, you get pretty big fields in there.
07:19But the horse that I'll have an eye on, and I'm not 1,000% sure that she's starting because
07:22I'm just looking at the probables, but Spinderella, who I mentioned at Royal Ascot, ran a big
07:27second in the coronation stakes behind Alpinista, who's going to be in the Yorkshire Oaks, who
07:31I mentioned tomorrow.
07:33She's such a nice filly for Graham Motion.
07:35I want to see what she can do when she comes back to the States because he had sharing,
07:40who I was a big fan of, win the Breeders' Cup juvenile fillies, then go over and run
07:44second in the coronation.
07:45But she never quite got back to that top form when she came back to America.
07:49So I'm going to be interested to see what Spinderella does if we do indeed see her on
07:54Saturday.
07:55And then, like I said, we got the Lake Placid as well.
07:57Guys, do we need two three-year-old filly turf stakes on the same day?
08:02And I get that they're across the country from each other, but can we have some kind
08:07of coordination here that we don't have these overlapping races on the exact same day on
08:13the calendar?
08:14But the Lake Placid usually does get a pretty good field at Saratoga, so we'll keep an eye
08:18on that.
08:19And also, we got the Islin at Monmouth, which that's one of those races that I feel like
08:23you could upgrade, honestly.
08:24Of all the horses that have won it over the years and that have been in it, I'm not sure
08:27who's going to be in this year's field, but it's been stuck at a grade three for a while.
08:31So even though I think overall we should be downgrading stakes, Islin's one of those that
08:35I think produces some good horses.
08:36Maybe you can make the argument for a grade two.
08:38So Saratoga this Saturday, the Alabama Lake Placid, obviously the international action
08:43going on at York today and the rest of the week, and the Delmar Oaks, which is a grade
08:48one on Saturday.
08:49It's tough to keep an eye on.