- With the retirement of Invasor, the G1 Suburban Handicap at Belmont this Saturday is not looking too attractive. I was there for the Met Mile. I enjoyed the race. But I don't feel the need to return to the track to watch it again with 25% more distance. I understand that a number of good horses were not nominated due to the presence of Invasor, but this is not a Grade 1 Field. Corinthian has a chance to take the lead in the TBA Twinspires.com Older Horse category, but we're hoping for a big upset by Malibu Moonshine. If Corinthian wins another Grade 1, he may be retired to stud the next time he stubs a hoof.
- The G1 Mother Goose makes the Suburban look like a classy race. Four 3-year-old fillies are entered. Four. Are you kidding me? For $250,000? I wish I owned a 3-year-old to just gallop around the track and take the 5th place money. I guess the down side of Rags to Riches running in the Belmont Stakes is that she's not in the Mother Goose.
- And while I'm complaining, here's one more. The boys in the Suburban will be carrying weights between 114 and 119 pounds. How can those weights be a valid handicap? The girls in the Mother Goose are all carrying 121 pounds. Heck, the 2-year-old maidens in the 2nd race are carrying 118 pounds. I truly believe that a few pounds on thousand pound horses makes no difference. If you really want to even the field, let's go back to 130+ pounds on the best horses. Then we'll separate the stallions from the geldings.
- Valerie at Foolish Pleasure scooped me on this one. I wanted to follow up on my previous post about horses racing while in foal. Iron Goddess won again on Wednesday. This time it was the $65,000 Stage View Stakes for NY Bred Fillies and Mares. This time she won by 1 and 1/2 lengths in a nice time of 1:20:90 for 7 furlongs. Forget steroids and milkshakes - get your mares pregnant and watch them wire the field!
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To know why the Mother Goose S-T-I-N-K-S look no further than Delaware Park. The Oaks has all the horses. The great, historic old races at Belmont Park are of no importance to the modern horse owner. The game has changed forever. It is painful for some of us to watch, but nostalgia is rarely constructive (see the almost-entry of Digger in the Belmont). Read the interview with John Vietch in last week's Thoroughbred Times and his fond memories of living in cottages on the grounds of the wealthiest people in the world, who happened to see great nobility in breeding horses to race.
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