Thursday, June 26, 2008

Grade 1's? Not so much.

I am the first to celebrate good horses and good races at Aqueduct and Belmont. But, for every impressive card, we have the disappointing Grade 1 races to be run on Saturday.

It is thrilling to see Proud Spell come back to New York for the Mother Goose Stakes. It was here that she won the Grade 2 Matron Stakes last year in a prep before finishing second in the BC Juvenile behind Indian Blessing. But other than this fine filly, we have three others that have won nothing more than a non-winners-of-one-other-than Allowance. That's just pitiful for a respected $250,000 Grade 1 race. Music Note from Godolphin is intriguing, but come on, can we get a Stakes winner in here? How about a filly that even competed in a graded Stakes race?

The 122nd edition of the $400,000 Grade 1 Suburban Handicap isn't that much better:

A.P. Arrow - A two-time Grade 2 winner with a nice run in this year's Dubai World Cup.

Frost Giant - A Grade 3 winner in Ireland in 2006. Two allowance wins in the U.S.

Naughty New Yorker - Much respect to this noble warrior, but he is not competitive now in a real Grade 1.

Solar Flare - An Allowance winner in Argentina and Delaware.

Rising Moon - An overnight Stakes winner at Belmont last year (however, he did beat Bug Boys favorites Malibu Moonshine and Funny Cide in that race).

Harlington - A Grade 2 winner in 2006 and just 3 races since then.

Hunting - A Grade 3 winner last year.

Merchant Marine - An overnight Stakes winner last week.

Really? A Grade 1? The Suburban? The race recently won by Invasor and Mineshaft? The Suburban won by Foolish Pleasure and Forego? Dr. Fager and Kelso? What the heck happened to the Suburban?

It's an awful shame that the best colt on Saturday's card may be Monastic Springs in the 7th race. Or maybe one of the babies in the 2nd.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Suburban field is so disappointing,

Mother Goose is far more interesting to me. Here lies the original. She'd probably have a shot in the Suburban.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mother_Goose_Grave_Boston.jpg

Brooklyn Backstretch said...

I couldn't get your whole link, Ernie, so I don't know exactly what I'm responding to, but the original Mother Goose, owned by Harry Payne Whitney, beat the boys in the 1924 Futurity. So maybe she really would have a shot in the Suburban...dead or alive....

 

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