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00:00This week's weekend preview, of course, is brought to you by Three Chimneys.
00:09We've got some action at Belmont at the Big A, which we're going to talk about in just
00:13a little bit about how weird that's going to be.
00:15Starting off with two jump races in tomorrow's opening day card, but we've got the Jockey
00:19Club Derby Invitational and the Jockey Club Oaks Invitational this Saturday at Aqueduct.
00:25Those races, I think, are going to continue to grow in importance as we see that three-year-old
00:29turf series really blossom in New York.
00:32They've done a great job with that.
00:33We've got a two-year-old race at Churchill, the Iroquois Stakes.
00:37I believe that's a win you're in for the Breeders' Cup.
00:39I could be wrong on that.
00:40We also have the Pocahontas there for the Phillies, and then we have a big card at Woodbine.
00:45This is the big mid-September card for the two-year-olds and for the Woodbine Mile.
00:49We've got the grade one Natalma, the grade one Summer Stakes, the grade one Woodbine
00:53Mile, as well as the grade three Seaway, so we're looking forward to that.
00:57What are you looking forward to most from the weekend?
00:59I think I'm looking forward to most of the Iroquois.
01:02It looks like it's going to come up pretty strong because Damon's Mound, who will likely
01:06be the favorite there, is such a cool horse.
01:08We talked about the strength of Baffert.
01:09We talked about the strength of all these horses that are selling for a million dollars
01:13at the sales.
01:14We'll be in races like this, many of them, next year.
01:16This still is this horse with a modest pedigree, trained by Michelle Lovell, and the connections
01:22that have refused to sell him.
01:24He's going to have to have his running shoes on because Echo, again, was one of the more
01:28impressive winners at the Saratoga Meet when the Maiden Ranks was coming at him.
01:31But we all like those feel-good, underdog stories, so I'll be looking for him.
01:36The other thing I wanted to mention, Joe, and again, I don't want to go all negative
01:41here, but we're looking at the...
01:45Right.
01:46The PPs aren't out yet, which is...
01:49So as soon as I say this, they'll have 14 horses entered in the Jockey Club Derby at
01:54Aqueduct.
01:54I'm only calling it Aqueduct, by the way.
01:56I'm not drinking the Belmont at Aqueduct Kool-Aid there.
02:00But right now, I know the Naira Racing Office actually sent out a text a couple of weeks
02:04ago saying, nobody's nominated to this race.
02:06Nominate your horses.
02:07They're talking right now about four horses, perhaps, running in this race.
02:11All this money for three-year-olds on the grass, and if you only get four horses...
02:15But here's one of the reasons why.
02:17On September 3rd at Saratoga, they ran the Saranac Stakes for this exact same division
02:22of horses.
02:23Now, and they only got four in there.
02:25It was won by Annapolis, who I guarantee you would be running in this race if it weren't
02:30for the other one.
02:31And again, there's too many stakes races out there.
02:34Would the world of horse racing really miss the Saranac Stakes?
02:38Get rid of it.
02:39Just get rid of it.
02:40Goodbye, Saranac.
02:42And you can see what happened.
02:44It was a lousy race as it was with four horses.
02:46Annapolis, I think, was a one-to-five favorite or something like that in there.
02:49And now it's affecting a race, the Jockey Club Derby, that you really want to have,
02:54you know, throw out your best product in there.
02:56So yeah, you know, that is, again, I'm going to bitch and moan and whine about this until
03:03they actually do something about it, because it's just not a smart way of going about doing
03:07things.
03:07Also, the Woodbine Cart on Saturday, which should be terrific.
03:09Woodbine Mile and a couple of the two-year-old races.
03:12And Modern Games looks like he's coming back.
03:14Last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner will take on Ivor, who's a pretty
03:18solid horse in his own right.
03:20So yeah, good racing action at Woodbine over the weekend.
03:24And then Aqueduct at Aqueduct this Saturday.
03:30All right, Bill.
03:31All right, we'll stick with Aqueduct at Aqueduct, I guess, for the purposes of this show.
03:35Go ahead, Derek.
03:36Yeah, I mean, just to piggyback a little bit on what Bill was saying, you know, they really
03:42need to tie these stakes races together instead of just randomly just scheduling them, because
03:48it causes these kind of problems.
03:50You have four in the Saranac, four in the Jockey Club Derby.
03:55That's eight if you eliminate one of those stakes.
03:58And you have a decent field.
04:01So there's that.
04:02But myself this weekend, definitely looking towards the Woodbine Mile.
04:06That looks like a really, really good race.
04:08It seems like it's going to come up pretty strong.
04:11I'm interested to see Cheryl Spite in there, who had some success over the winter down
04:16here in Florida.
04:18Get Smokin' supposedly is going to be in there.
04:21Wakanaka, who came from Italy over and has run pretty well.
04:26Modern Games, who we know from the Del Mar Breeders' Cup.
04:30So yeah, I'm looking forward to that race in particular.
04:33But you know, Aqueduct is Aqueduct.
04:35And it's a horse player's kind of scene and kind of track.
04:40So I'm very excited for that.
04:41It's a little bit different than what we've seen in the past.
04:44But definitely want to get my hands in there and get some of that money.
04:50I want to jump in again on the Belmont.
04:52I know what Naira is doing here.
04:53It's all about branding.
04:55And because Saratoga handles the most, Belmont handles the second most, and Aqueduct is a
04:59distant third.
05:00And Martin Panza, I had written during COVID that I didn't think they should have gone
05:06to Saratoga.
05:07They should have just stayed at Belmont.
05:08What was the point of schlepping everybody up there to have empty stands?
05:11And he told me, he says, you don't understand.
05:14If you don't have the Saratoga emblem on it or the Saratoga brand, if we run the same
05:20races at Belmont, it's going to handle less.
05:23And I think that's what this is all about.
05:25I think that Naira wants you, just like Gulfstream, when they called Calder Gulfstream Park West.
05:30It's the same sort of thing.
05:31And actually, that worked tremendously.
05:33The Gulfstream Park West handle was way bigger than it was when they ran at Calder.
05:39So it's all about branding.
05:40And I think that's a smart move.
05:42They want people to think Belmont.
05:43They want people to think the big fall races at Belmont and whatnot.
05:47But let's not kid ourselves.
05:48It is Aqueduct at Aqueduct.
05:50But I understand what they're doing there.
05:52And they're probably right.
05:52I think just by that little nuance of a name change, they will handle probably more than
05:59they would.
05:59Now, when Belmont is the only track left in New York downstate in four or five years from
06:05now, when they run in the winter, will they call it Aqueduct at Belmont?
06:09All right.
06:09We wanted to save this for the second part of the weekend preview.
06:12So we'll toss the commercial, and then we'll come back, and I'll give my thoughts.
06:15I'm sorry.
06:16But no, you're good.
06:17The weekend preview, of course, is sponsored by Three Chimneys.
06:20Gunrunner is off to a fast start at the Keeneland September sale, as you would imagine.
06:24He had the book one session-topping Philly bring $1.5 million during the first session.
06:29And on day two, he had another Philly bring top dollar, went a full sister to grade two
06:34prior stakes winner Wicked Halo, brought $1.1 million.
06:38Three additional Gunrunner yearlings sold for over half a million dollars.
06:42So obviously, his racetrack success is translating to the sales ring as well.
06:46And I think his trajectory is still going up, even though he's going to be $200-plus
06:50thousand stud fee in the future.
06:52But yeah, definitely look for those Gunrunners in the rest of the Three Chimneys Stallion
06:56roster for the rest of Keeneland September, which goes through September 24th.
07:00So plenty of chances to get in on the Three Chimneys Stallions.
07:03And we'll be right back after this message from Three Chimneys.
07:22And it's all Tyler's tribe to the final furlong.
07:45He's putting on another show tonight.
07:47He is eight lengths in front.
07:49Now it's 10.
07:50Now it's 12.
07:51Tyler's tribe pouring it on as they come down to the line.
07:55He's going to win by double digits.
07:57And he stopped the clock in 104.
08:08All right, Bill brought this up before the break.
08:09And it's a good point about the branding, because we were questioning the wisdom of
08:13running at Saratoga in the COVID summer.
08:16We were like, is it really worth it to ship all these horses up and ship everybody up
08:20for the summer just to run with no fans and no real buzz or real nightlife or any of this
08:26stuff that you would associate with Saratoga?
08:29But it does make a difference.
08:30And I guess just seeing that Saratoga emblem makes people bet more.
08:35Maybe seeing the Belmont emblem will make people bet more at Aqueduct.
08:39I'm the kind of guy who is always going to bet Aqueduct.
08:42Not necessarily in the dead of winter.
08:43I'm not that hardcore.
08:45I generally take my tack south to Gulfstream and fairgrounds in the winter.
08:50But that fall meet at Aqueduct is pretty underrated, I think.
08:53Leading up to the Cigar Mile, they have a lot of good racing.
08:56So it's going to be fun, I think, to see Aqueduct get a little bit of shine.
09:00Because as Bill said, it's going to go away.
09:03Day Road Work basically confirmed that to us.
09:06We had them on the show about a month ago.
09:08So that makes me a little bit sad.
09:10But it's going to be nice to see it get a little bit of shine this fall while the construction
09:14is going on at Belmont.
09:16But it is going to look a little bit weird to see these races that you're used to seeing
09:19on that big, wide turf course at Belmont being run on the slightly less glamorous turf course
09:26at Aqueduct.
09:27But I do think what's interesting and what I'm looking forward to is, I don't know, I'm
09:32a traditionalist.
09:33I like two-turn mile-and-an-eighth races.
09:36Much as I love Belmont, that one-turn mile-and-an-eighth has always rubbed me the wrong way.
09:40I just think that those seven furlong horses can get that mile-and-an-eighth so much easier
09:46going one turn.
09:47So we're going to see the Woodward, which is a grade one, being run at two-turn mile-and-an-eighth
09:51at Aqueduct.
09:52But yeah, we're going to start it, like I said before, tomorrow is the first day of
09:56the Belmont at Aqueduct meter.
09:57As Bill says, Aqueduct at Aqueduct.
09:59We're going to start with two jumps races, which I didn't think there had ever been jumps
10:03races before at Aqueduct.
10:05But Joe Clancy did a story this week.
10:08He's the big steeplechase guy, usually up at Saratoga, that there is a pretty steep
10:13history of Aqueduct running jumps races.
10:16So we're going to start with two.
10:17One of them is a grade one tomorrow.
10:19I feel like this is the first time we've ever even mentioned jumps races.
10:22On the writers room, we were 154 episodes in.
10:24We finally gave a little hat tip to the jumps races.
10:27But yeah, I mean, listen, it's a New York, it's a hardcore handicapper's paradise, as
10:35Barry said.
10:36It's where the real nuts and bolts New York horse players play.
10:40We used to go there.
10:41My boys and I used to go there during the summer because they would simulcast the Saratoga
10:46meet back when we couldn't really afford to go to Saratoga for any part of the summer.
10:51That's what we would do.
10:52We'd hang out at the old empty deserted bar at Aqueduct and bet Saratoga during the summer.
10:57So I'm looking forward to it.
10:58I'm going to see a bunch of old friends out there.
11:01Barry, have you spent any significant amount of time at Aqueduct in your horse playing
11:05career?
11:06Oh, yeah, absolutely.
11:07That's kind of where I kind of got my start, in a sense.
11:12Um, when I was a kid, you know, learning how to play the game and things like that when
11:17I was really small, my grandparents lived in Brooklyn and, you know, we'd go visit them
11:24at the time we lived in Trenton, New Jersey.
11:26We'd go visit them on the weekends and we'd end up either at Belmont or Aqueduct, whatever
11:30was running at the time.
11:32So, yeah, I got a lot of fond memories of Aqueduct and playing the races there and learning
11:38how to play, even though I grew up in Massachusetts.
11:41Rockingham and Suffolk Downs were kind of my stomping grounds, but definitely have a
11:46lot of connection to New York racing.
11:50Joe, I want to add one more thing about the steeplechase race.
11:52And Andy Serling, our friend, put this on Twitter yesterday.
11:55This is the first time there'll be a jump race at Aqueduct since 1974.
12:00And back in the day, even longer than I've been around in the game, there used to be
12:04at the New York tracks one steeplechase race every single day.
12:07It was a part of the program.
12:09The winning jockey in that last steeplechase race at Aqueduct was Leo O'Brien.
12:14How do you like that?
12:15Wow.
12:16Current trainer in New York.
12:18Yeah.
12:19Like I said, it's going to warm my heart a little bit to see these people who are, you
12:23know, they're very dismissive of Aqueduct.
12:26Well, now you got to watch.
12:27Now you got to watch and bet it.
12:29There's no other options in New York until next spring.
12:32So buckle in and, you know, support the New York racing product.
12:37You know, it is, like I said, it's a city racetrack, as Andy Serling likes to say.
12:42You know, it's not as glamorous as Saratoga or Belmont, but it serves its purpose.
12:46And it's going to be great racing.
12:47It's going to be terrific racing.
12:48And it starts tomorrow.