Barbaro Updates: 357
updates are now here.
Update 2309: Curlin is not running in the Travers. He is being pointed for the Jockey Club, which will be his first start against older horses, and then the Breeders' Cup: Curlin to use Jockey Club Gold Cup as Breeders' Cup prep.
Update 2308: An article that looks at some of the troubles horseracing faces and what it is trying to do to deal with the issues: Horse racing's black eye.
Things are looking good for the Saratoga meet: Saratoga Going Strong After Third Week of Meet. When I saw the title of the article I was hoping for more about the horses running at the meet, not just statistics on handle attendance and races run.
Update 2307: Hawty Creek was fourth this afternoon at Philadelphia Park. The first two were clear, Hawty was close for third.
An update from Penny at Timwoolleyracing.com:
Beautiful cool morning today with little humidity. Tim reports that he saw a heron landing in the pond as he rode by. Quick Quest has come out of his race fine. We had him scoped after the race and he has a little infection which can be cleared up easily. This time of year with the heat and humidity infections can come up quickly. There are greater numbers of eye infections as well this time of year. Of course we are disappointed with the way some of our horses are running lately but this is the roller coaster ride of being a trainer. Red Aspen winning was such a high spot and then to have her come out of the race with an eye injury was devastating. Trainers are readily humbled! Tim had a great time looking at babies at the Saratoga Sale but we were outbid on both of the babies we were most interested in. At least Saratoga is a great place to be. What a beautiful place to watch really nice horses train and race. Saturday I stopped by Fair Hill to watch some of the horses train. Who's Happy toted Robbie Walsh around the track. She was quite a handful. Tim reports today that he galloped her a strong mile and a half with a german martingale. Anyway, its fun to watch the ladies give these guys such a hard time. Michelle took out Nautical Agent and Fortuna to the track and reported that both were moving well.
Update 2306: Having spent a lovely weekend in the Fair Hill area it was an early morning start to return to Penn National ... I left at 3 am. Getting to the track at 6, the weather was beautiful. I had ten to ride today, seven at the racetrack and three on the farm. The morning started off relatively quickly, the first six sets were done by 8:15 am. The remaining four, three on the farm, took me through to about 10:30 am. All in all a nice mornings work at Penn National.
Hawty Creek is on the fourth today at Philadelphia Park. I spoke to Dave (her trainer / owner) this morning and he thinks she should run well. There is one tough horse in there but she should run close. Lets hope so!
Update 2305: Mandura is establishing himself as the best horse in Europe with another win this weekend: MANDURO BAGS MAROIS PRIZE , excerpt:
"He's a proper superstar, we were always confident coming into the race and he's proved it today," Harley later told At The Races.
"I have spoken to the owner and he is over the moon. Although we were very confident before the race it is a relief he has gone and proven himself again.
"We are going to the Arc. It's very much part of the plan - that's the next port of call. It's possible we may go to the Breeders' Cup."
Good morning all
I have had a lot of catching up to do as I have been offline for over a week (computer virus) and I was very surprised to see a pristine new page at this time of the day.
We had an interesting event at Ascot on Saturday with Dubai Free Shergar Cup, which is an international team event between four teams: UK, Ireland, Europe and Rest of the World. It was really good racing and fascinating to see the different styles of jockeys from different parts of the globe - just a pity there were no Americans. The Rest of the World won with a good run at the end (two Aussies and a Japanese) with Hugh Bowman (Australian) taking the honours as top rider. British girl, Hayley Turner did really well to come second (we have hardly any female jockeys). A good time was had by all.
Just a word on Manduro - rated the top horse in the world at the moment. His trainer Andre Fabre says he may go for the Breeders' Cup Classic after the Arc ( when asked what qualities a horse needs to perform well on dirt, he said "gas" ) and he also mentioned that it is easier to train 5 year olds than 3 year olds. Interesting. I enoyed this article:
Impeccable win in Marois keeps Manduro on top of the world
Have a good week, everyone.
Posted by: Liz (UK) at August 13, 2007 9:17 AM