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00:00Now the weekend preview brought to you by Three Chimneys. We'll take a look at
00:12some of the stakes action going around this weekend and then after that we'll
00:15come back and take a look at the field now of the pre-entered horses for the
00:17Breeders' Cup Juvenile. Kind of a quiet weekend as you would expect but Zoe I
00:21want to start with you because it's not a quiet weekend at Santa Anita. There's
00:25something going on in terms of what's gonna happen on the racetrack and also
00:28something going on. Maybe someone could walk away with a million bucks. Tell us more.
00:32Yeah absolutely Bill. While the rest of the country is sleeping and perhaps
00:37looking forward to Breeders' Cup we're gonna have our own mini Breeders' Cup
00:40this weekend at Santa Anita. They'll be drawing the races today for Saturday and
00:46we're expecting seven stakes worth in excess of one million dollars highlighted
00:52by a couple of Grade 2 events. We are talking about the Goldacova coming in
00:58here and a couple of others. The Twilight Derby is worth two hundred
01:02thousand seven stakes and that's all gonna evolve around the Pick Six. Now a
01:07lot of times we have a single ticket winner. Now this weekend if there is a
01:12single ticket winner, listen to this Randy, First Racing is gonna give up a
01:17million dollars. If you are the only ticket winner in the Pick Six you will
01:22get a bonus of a million dollars. The carryover going into Saturday's Pick Six
01:26is a hundred and forty three thousand. So a million reasons to play the Pick Six
01:31at Santa Anita and seven terrific stakes on the card. Looks like we'll see going
01:37global in the Goldacova stakes. She's gonna face Avenue de France. She was
01:41originally slated to perhaps go to the Breeders' Cup but Phil D'Amato keeping
01:45her home and she will most certainly be a single I do believe on a lot people's
01:49tickets. She'll be in the Grade 2 Goldacova. So at Keeneland we've got the
01:54Fayette and the Bryan Station on Saturday. Fayette is kind of, you know, the
01:58conditions might be for really good horses that aren't quite good enough to
02:00run in the Breeders' Cup Classic but you do have first captain in there. He was
02:04third in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, won the Pimlico Special earlier in the year
02:07and for those of us who like Tyler's Tribe, go Iowa Breds, how about Ain't Life
02:12Grand, the winner of the Iowa Derby. Last time out seventh in the Traverse. He'll
02:15be in there as well as King Fury. Bryan Station, Classic Causeway, won the
02:20Belmont Derby in June of Grade 1. We'll face off against among others Witt who
02:23won the Better Talk Now Stakes last time out for Todd Pletcher and Ballinacove
02:27is shipping in from your neck of the woods, Zoe, from California. Aqueduct will
02:31have the Kelso and the Bold Ruler on Saturday. Kelso has an interesting horse.
02:35Now I hate to say this because we're talking about it before the entries come
02:38out. So Steve Asmussen, please run this horse. But how about Morello? Remember
02:42him? He won the Gotham and looked like he was going to be a major player along the
02:46way. Then he ran a clunker in the Wood Memorial, came back and run another
02:50clunker in the Woody Stevens. But Steve Asmussen brought him back a couple weeks
02:54ago. He won an allowance race at Laurel, of all places, to prep for this race. And
02:59the Kelso, no longer a prep for the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, used to be.
03:03Remember, Life is Good won the...didn't Life is Good win the Kelso? Yeah, which was
03:08it was situated as a prep for the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. Obviously one
03:12week before the Breeders' Cup, nobody's gonna come out of that and run in there.
03:14But should be a really interesting weekend of racing at Keeneland, Belmont,
03:17and Aqueduct, and especially at Santa Anita with those seven-stakes races. You
03:21know, a smart move by Santa Anita to, you know, on a day, Zoe, when not much is
03:27going on around the country. They're gonna steal the show, I think.
03:30Yeah, I mean, they really are. And I think the bonus of a million dollars on top of
03:34the pick six, if you're the only winner, is certainly a big key. Because a lot of
03:39times, we just had it a couple of weeks ago, where it's the jackpot, and it's
03:43like a regular pick six. But this is a single ticket winner, with a chance of
03:47winning a million dollars. And it's gonna be a really, really good card. A
03:51lot of turf racing. You'll find more and more over here on the left coast that
03:56we're utilizing our turf course an awful lot, probably 60% of the races are now on
04:01turf, because we have so many turf courses to choose from. So good races,
04:06full fields, and that is what we're hoping for. And of course, it's gonna be
04:10sunny. It doesn't rain out here.
04:13That million dollars certainly captured my attention, Zoe.
04:17Yeah, absolutely, right?
04:19The TDN Writer's Room and the Weekend Preview is brought to you by Three
04:23Chimneys. Of course, Three Chimneys, the home of Gunrunner. We talked about
04:26Wicked Halo and Gunite, winning for Steve Aspessin at Keeneland. Both the
04:31son and a daughter of Gunrunner. And of course, Gunrunner off to an amazing
04:35start in his first crop. You're looking at Early Voting, the Preakness winner,
04:39Echo Zulu, the champion two-year-old Philly. Cyberknife, winner of the
04:43Arkansas Derby and the Haskell. Taba, winner of the Santa Anita Derby and the
04:47Pennsylvania Derby. Three of those will be competing in the Breeders' Cup next
04:51weekend as well. We'll be right back for part two of the Weekend Preview after
04:55this message from Three Chimneys.
04:59Here comes Taba. Taba in the center of the track with good looking stride,
05:04squares off with Cyberknife. Cyberknife takes the lead. Taba going with him.
05:08These two in a thriller. Cyberknife just in front. And Cyberknife has won the
05:14TBG.com Haskell over Taba. Jack Christopher finished third. The running
05:18time, one minute, 46.24 seconds.
05:25Come dream with us at Three Chimneys.
05:29And welcome back to the Weekend Preview. We're gonna do something a little bit
05:32different here. I've been making Randy Moss do double duty on the podcast.
05:36But he's our official morning line maker for the Breeders' Cup. We've
05:40gotten his line for the Classic. We got his line for the Distaff. This week, I
05:43want to get his line for what I think is another one of the really outstanding
05:46races on the Breeders' Cup card. Randy, you made a line for the Breeders' Cup
05:50Juvenile. No surprise here. Cave Rock and even money. Is he the biggest
05:53favorite on the card next to Flightline? He's gotta be, right?
05:59I would think so. With Jack Christopher running against Jackie's Warrior, he's
06:04gonna take a lot of play in there. You know, Modern Games has got some
06:08competition in the mile. So yeah, I think that's probably a pretty accurate
06:12statement. I could have gone as low as four to five on Cave Rock and I thought
06:17about it. But ultimately, the points balanced out better at even money
06:21because I think National Treasure, Forte, Blazing Sevens are all going to get
06:25some play. I wouldn't be surprised, even though I've got Forte as a slight
06:29second choice. I wouldn't be surprised to see National Treasure be the second
06:33choice. The Speed Figure guys, I think, are going to have him with a slightly
06:36higher number than Forte. But Forte has that great one win in the Breeders'
06:40Futurity, whereas National Treasure is still looking for his first stakes win.
06:44But those four should be significantly higher than verifying the well-bred
06:50horse by a Sunna Justified trained by Brad Cox. And then you have the rest of
06:53them that are going to be a pretty big price after that. But Cave Rock, Zoe, is
06:57a very exciting horse to look forward to. I know you've been pleased and
07:02you've been impressed by the way he's been training out there for Bob Baffert.
07:04And he's certainly done nothing wrong in his races so far. He's a very relaxed
07:09horse. I actually swung by Bob's barn yesterday and Bob was in a jovial
07:13mood and I'm like, come on, let me let me go see Cave Rock. And he's like, oh. And then
07:17of course he took me. You know, usually your best horse is in the front stall by
07:21your office, right? No, we're in the back 40. We went all the way around to the
07:25other end of the barn. Down at the end, he's got a nice window and he was flat
07:30out in his stall. Just flat out, not a bother on him. Two doors down, they were
07:35actually clipping Bob's other horse in the juvenile. So he was outside, the
07:40clippers were going and they were clipping him. But yeah, Cave Rock had his
07:43head out the door and just flat out. So we got a good look at him. Got a good
07:48look at National Treasure, who's a big, tall, growthy looking horse. Reading
07:54between the lines, if it wasn't for the ownership group that he has, I'm not
07:58sure he would be going to the Breeders' Cup. He looks like a horse who's in a
08:02growing spurt. I have no doubt he's a very, very good horse. But he just looks
08:07like he's growing right now. And next year is probably going to be where he
08:12makes a lot of the hay next year. I think he's going to be a much better horse
08:15next year. We're just seeing the raw bones. But Cave Rock is just a bulky
08:20tank. Yes, he moves like Arrogate on the racetrack. He's got that low head
08:24carriage and he just skips along the ground. But he's got a lot more
08:28substance. He looks much more like a three-year-old than Arrogate ever did
08:32in his two-year-old year. So I got a good look at him. And then Bob pulled me
08:37around the other side of the barn. He's like, come on, come on, come and have a
08:40look at Tabor. I went and had a good look at Gunrunner. He's like, it's
08:43amazing how much he looks just like Gunrunner. We went in the stall and he's
08:48like, I love him right here, the barrel bit. And he's getting a little bit
08:53higher in his withers. And he is a compact horse, Tabor. But he, again, has
08:58hit a bit of a growth spurt. And he really does look terrific going in
09:02there. And I mean, make no bones about it. If everything goes well for
09:05Flightline, the rest of them are running for second. But, you know, they still
09:10all got to cross the wire first. So we'll have to see. But Bob was very
09:14excited. It was kind of cool just to walk around Murderer's Row and the
09:18Baffert's Shed row.
09:20Now, a horse that wasn't entered, and we knew this was going to be the case. No
09:23Loggins, who was so impressive when running second in the Breeders' Futurity
09:26at Keeneland. I would have given him the best chance to beat Cave Rock, even
09:30though he got beat by Forte in that race at Keeneland. He had a difficult trip.
09:34He fought gallantly. The wire came back on that horse. But Brant Cox said, you
09:38know, look, I really want to win the Kentucky Derby here with this horse. It
09:41would be for him to come back in the Breeders' Cup would have been three
09:44races in seven weeks. He admitted that the horse came out of the Breeders'
09:47Futurity at Keeneland kind of tired, didn't bounce back out of the race like
09:51he wanted to. He said if he was tearing the barn door down, I would have
09:54entered him. But Randy, where does Loggins fit into this? And are we going
09:57to see an East Coast-West Coast rivalry of Cave Rock and Loggins on the way to
10:01the Kentucky Derby? I mean, a million things can go wrong to derail that. But
10:04right now, I think they're the top two two-year-olds out there.
10:07I mean, it could also be an East Coast-West Coast rivalry between Cave
10:10Rock and Forte. Let's see how Forte runs in the Breeders' Cup. I mean, he's
10:14done nothing wrong so far. But I think, and they ran against each other,
10:17obviously, in the Breeders' Futurity. And you and I both, and Zoe probably as
10:21well, came out of that race thinking that Loggins long term would probably be
10:26the better horse, given his inexperience going into that race, given the trip
10:30that he had a very, very fast pace, and he was on the engine all the way. And
10:35yet he was still fighting back gallantly through the lane, while all the other
10:38horses that were close to the pace finished way, way back in the pack. I'm
10:43excited about Loggins' chances as a three-year-old. I know Brad Cox is as
10:47well. I talked to him also. And I think it's the right decision not to run him
10:51in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile for all the reasons that you cited. But looking
10:56ahead, I think he is a horse we can get excited about.
10:59I think it's actually refreshing to see a trainer trying to do the right thing by
11:04the horse. Now, we don't exactly know how he came out of the race. But I mean,
11:08that's Brad's story, and he's sticking to it, and he's going to put him away for
11:12next year. So kudos to them, just to miss the dance and go for the big dance
11:17next year.