Jo’Burg Fans To Welcome July Winner
Sparkling Water runs in the grade 3 Tab4Racing Victory Moon Stakes and is the favourite for the 1,800m race
David Mollett (Business Day)
US colleges have “Homecoming Queens” and Gauteng’s equine version, Sparkling Water, makes her first appearance since her Hollywoodbets Durban July triumph when she runs at Turffontein on Saturday.
Mike de Kock’s star mare runs in the grade 3 Tab4Racing Victory Moon Stakes and predictably has been priced up favourite for the 1,800m race.
However, those who made money on the daughter of Silvano in the July — which includes Business Day readers — might first want to check out the trainer’s comment on De Kock’s website.
De Kock is certain to point out that this race is to blow away the cobwebs en route to the Betway Summer Cup, but S’manga Khumalo will have to overcome a wide draw.
In the circumstances, this column is going to advise each-way support of Perfect Witness, who has a number of factors in her favour. She is well drawn, has just 50kg on her back and a top jockey in the saddle.
It is therefore something of a surprise that the two tipsters for Winning Form don’t select Candice Dawson’s filly in their top five.
Dawson confirmed this week that Perfect Witness needed the outing when three lengths behind Irish Tractor last month. Brett Crawford’s charge did well to finish sixth in the Charity Mile from the worst draw.
William Robertson was the subject of considerable drama before winning his last start, and Corné Spies is reportedly keen to run his six-time winner in the Summer Cup. It will be a big performance if he can defy the top weight of 61kg.
De Kock’s Charity Mile runners were all well drawn, but that’s not the case this time with SA Derby winner Aragosta drawn worse than his stablemate Sparkling Water. The gelding will sport blinkers this time.
Sean Tarry will saddle five runners and his versatile six-year-old, Nebraas, looks the pick of his quintet. Rachel Venniker will be delighted to have got the call to partner the seven-time winner for the first time.
With Keagan De Melo riding at Kenilworth, hot trainer Johan Janse van Vuuren has had to find a new jockey for
Outofthedarkness. Chase Maujean gets the ride and is faced with a wide draw on the four-year-old.
Though Second Base has been a good servant for the stable, last season’s Colorado King winner is a kilogram worse off with Nebraas compared to their recent clash.
The supporting feature — the Gardenia Stakes — looks like a minefield for punters with questions over the heads of many of the runners.
If bookies have got their sums right, it’s a two-horse affair between Iphiko and Big Burn, the only two fillies quoted in single figures. Bred by Team Valor International, Iphiko has done the Hollywood Syndicate proud and is chasing a five-timer.
Paul Peter had a high opinion of Big Burn and Tarry only had the filly for a short while when beaten by Humdinger (seriously disappointing last Saturday) in the Spring Challenge. Expect a far better performance this time.
Nevertheless, there is the suspicion that this 1,000m dash could produce a surprise winner and all of Kissing Point, Remember When, Flowerbomb and What A Honey warrant inclusion in exotic perms.
The best bet at the meeting is surely Desert Miracle in the fifth race. Don’t expect the filly’s opening price of 12-10 to last long.
SELECTIONS
1st Race: No Selection
2nd Race: No Selection
3rd Race: (1) Quantum Theory (2) Swing Upon A Star (3) I Am Giant (6) Antigua Night
4th Race: (2) Meridius (3) Atticus Finch (4) Ignatius (1) Simple Simple
5th Race: (2) Desert Miracle (3) Sweet Pepper (1) Val D’Orcia (5) Moonshiningthrough
6th Race: (12) Flowerbomb (1) Big Burn (9) Iphiko (5) Remember When
7th Race: (17) Perfect Witness (2) Sparkling Water (5) Nebraas (1) William Robertson
8th Race: (2) Royal Mazarin (4) Cape Bouquet (3) Go Dream Machine (1) Alfaatik
9th Race: (4) Black Egret (1) Sylvan Theater (3) Billy Spellbound (6) Puerto Plata
The Summer Cup picture is as clear as mud
Leading bookmakers ducked for cover by slashing the odds on Bingwa for the Betway Summer Cup following the five-year-old gelding’s commanding victory in the Charity Mile at the weekend.
40-1 and upwards the others
Breeders Cup – Detailed Preview Of All The Turf Races
www.attheraces.com
By Marcus Hersh , Daily Racing Form
It comes down to this: In Europe, Thoroughbreds are turf horses. Racing in America has a heart made of dirt.
Lashkari in 1984 and Pebbles in 1985 won the first and second editions of the Breeders’ Cup Turf. That’s one bookend over time: The other is the nine overseas winners during the last two Breeders’ Cups, five at Del Mar in 2021, four at Keeneland in 2020.
Americans somehow swept the 2-year-old grass races on Breeders’ Cup Friday two years ago, but Europeans came back to win all four Saturday grass contests.
There are very good Americans entered Saturday in the Turf Sprint, the Filly and Mare Turf, the Mile, and the Turf, but let’s set the over-under on European wins at 2 1/2.
Turf
Five European runners in this race, and 17 European ship-in winners of the Turf since 2000. Ireland-based females won the two Turfs at Keeneland – Found in 2015, Tarnawa in 2020 – but the only girl here is War Like Goddess, bred and campaigned in America.
There’s no standout among the Europeans, but there doesn’t have to be, since War Like Goddess is the only horse from this continent capable of taking first prize.
Godolphin and trainer Charlie Appleby have two of the favorites, Nations Pride and Rebel’s Romance. The morning line says Rebel’s Romance is the chalk; Appleby says it’ll be Nations Pride. Let’s go with Appleby, who has given the mount on Nations Pride to top stable jockey William Buick.
Nations Pride has made as many starts in America this year, three, as overseas, finishing a pace-compromised second in the Belmont Derby, winning the Saratoga Derby Invitational by 1 3/4 lengths, and rolling to a 6 1/4-length score in the Jockey Club Derby Invitational on Sept. 17. Nations Pride beat a very nice colt in Annapolis two back, but that was farther than Annapolis wants to run, and how soft was the most recent bunch Nations Pride thrashed? Very. Second-place The Grey Wizard came back five weeks later and finished fifth in a first-level allowance race.
Nations Pride blew out his rivals in the Newmarket Stakes this past spring but had everything his way over inferior competition there and went on to finish eighth in the Epsom Derby. Granted, Yibir won the 2021 Turf as a 3-year-old after winning the Belmont Derby earlier in the year. At Del Mar last year, Appleby in the days before the race all but said Yibir was the major hope, Canadian International winner Walton Street, who would finish ninth, a plucky but ultimately overmatched runner.
Walton Street, like Rebel’s Romance, raced in Germany before coming to North America, but he was an older horse than 4-year-old Rebel’s Romance, and where Walton Street was a well-beaten third in Germany – albeit behind the last two winners of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Alpinista and Torquator Tasso – Rebel’s Romance won his two Group 1s there in August and September. Rebel’s Romance began his career on dirt and even traveled to New York for the Belmont Stakes, only to be scratched because of an injury, and has gone 4 for 4 since being switched to grass this year. He’s powerful and rugged, perhaps not a dream ride, races in a hood and lacks speed, coming from far back in his pair of Group 1 wins. He appeared to wait on horses after making the lead in both German starts. His Timeform ratings check in at a competitive 120. Nations Pride will lay closer to the lead, and connections evidently believe he’s better.
Mishriff wears blinkers for the first time while making the final start of a career in which he’s earned nearly $16 million. Naturally a 1 1/4-mile horse in Europe, he can get 1 1/2 miles on a flat turning track, as he did winning the 2021 Sheema Classic in Dubai over two excellent Japanese fillies, Chrono Genesis and Loves Only You. Winless this year, Mishriff caught soft ground he doesn’t like his last two starts, and in a couple earlier races over firmer footing, he simply stood in his stall when the starting gate sprang. Mishriff might be getting too clever for his own good.
Aidan O’Brien won the 2015 Turf here with Found and has two for this race, the apparently overmatched Stone Age, who might push the pace, and the enigmatic Broome, who nearly won the 2021 Turf at Del Mar. Broome is a habitually bad gate horse, getting away poorly in the BC Turf and in a disappointing fourth-place finish as the favorite in the Sword Dancer at Saratoga this summer. At Del Mar, he made a huge, premature, wide turn move, which left him vulnerable to Yibir’s late acceleration, and if Broome could reproduce that performance, he could win. His 2021 form looks about the same as this year’s. Don’t rule him out.
Mile
Modern Games we North Americans know well, and it’s difficult imagining him not playing a key role in the Mile.
He was dominant in the Juvenile Turf last year at Del Mar and even more so in September, when he turned the Woodbine Mile into one-horse show. Overseas, Modern Games also has thrived, winning the French 2000 Guineas around a turn in his first start of the year and turning in a fine performance to be second Oct. 15 in the straight-course Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Modern Games hits a higher level around turns and firmer footing than he does going straight over soft ground, and his showing last month at Ascot confirms his continued strong form. Even in defeat this season, Modern Games held third behind top-class winner Vadeni going farther than ideal in the French Derby, and in the one-mile Sussex at Goodwood, he came closest to Europe’s best miler in years, Baaeed.
While Modern Games clearly merits favoritism, Kinross has higher Timeform ratings, in part because Modern Games has been getting a 3-year-old weight break. Kinross shows only sprint starts on his form, but connections firmly believe a North American mile, which requires less stamina than European races over the same distance, falls within his scope. Kinross turned his career around after he was gelded and hit a peak this year at age 5. He’s tactically versatile but most naturally a stalker, deploying an effective turn of foot that’s more steady than brilliant. He comfortably won the Prix de la Foret, the same race Space Blues used as a catapult to BC Mile success, but the competition there, including Mile starter Malavath, lacked luster. He wasn’t hard used in that race nor in his six-furlong British Champions Sprint win, and Kinross likely still has fuel in the tank. Is he good enough to overcome post 13? That’s questionable.
Order of Australia we also know well. He wasn’t just a 73-1 winner of the 2020 BC Mile at Keeneland, he was the 73-1 winner breaking from post 14, leading home an Aidan O’Brien-trained trifecta. Order of Australia ran poorly in fall 2021 at Keeneland but came out of the race injured and didn’t start again until June. He was no match for Baaeed or Modern Games in the Sussex nor for Mile runner Dreamloper in the Prix Jacques Le Marois, and his third in the Coolmore Turf Mile here last month, while solid, won’t win him a second BC Mile. But be warned: Order of Australia validated his 2020 Mile upset in several 2021 European races, and O’Brien insists the horse’s entire 2022 campaign was aimed at Saturday’s start.
You’d have to favor Order of Australia over Dreamloper, despite the mare’s 5 1/2-length pasting of him in the Marois. That was a strange race, with favored Coroebus breaking down badly in the homestretch while right next to Order of Australia. Dreamloper showed pace and clung to the fence, running better than she ever had before. The Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan she won this past spring was frankly a soft spot, and the mare doesn’t have enough pace to make the front like she did in the Marois.
Pogo is the fastest Euro here – maybe as fast as any of the Americans. He consistently leads in seven-furlong contests, and somehow, at age 6, Pogo is having a career season. He beat Kinross in May and lost to him by a nose in July, which either puts a shine on Pogo’s form or makes you wonder about Kinross’s.
Filly and Mare Turf
How about this one: An overseas horse or one trained by Chad Brown has won the last 10 renewals of this race. There’s a good chance that streak continues, with the Brown-trained In Italian a major threat and three Europeans capable of capturing the Filly and Mare Turf.
Let’s start with the two who can’t win, Toy and Mise En Scene. Mise En Scene must have some sort of buried form to motivate her connections coming here – but hidden it is. Post 13 proved her undoing in the 2021 Juvenile Fillies, but 2022 has been a lost campaign so far. Toy did finish second in the Irish Oaks, a weak race this season, and you can guess at the nature of her presence here seeing all the races where she went to the front. Her trainer, Aidan O’Brien, has a far more qualified entrant, Tuesday. Toy’s task could be to keep In Italian honest – if she has the pace to keep up.
Nashwa should vie for favoritism with In Italian. She’s an excellent 3-year-old filly and might still have mild improvement in her this year. She has never run a bad race and has turned in several excellent ones. Her top performance on ratings was neither her win in the French Oaks nor the Nassau Stakes, but her last-start loss in the Prix de l’Opera, where Place du Carrousel, who surely enjoyed the very soft going more than Nashwa, ran her down. Nashwa has employed a range of styles, going to the front a furlong into the Opera, coming from last winning the Nassau.
Nashwa had a nose on third-place Above the Curve in the Opera; maybe lightly raced Above the Curve is progressive, or maybe she got over the bad ground at Longchamp better than most. She’s a scopey, lumbering kind of filly who might grow into herself more as a 4-year-old. Defeated going around sharp left-handed bends at Chester in the Cheshire Oaks, she became a Group 1 winner beating Prix de l’Opera heroine Place du Carrousel in the Prix Saint-Alary in May. Place du Carrousel wasn’t as good then as she got in the fall, and watching Above the Curve race, one gets the sense the Filly and Mare Turf’s 1 3/16 miles will be on the sharp side for her.
Which gets us to Tuesday, a very interesting entrant. Tuesday showed some speed finishing third in the English 1000 Guineas, a straight mile, and showed some speed finishing second when Homeless Songs ran out of her skin in the Irish 1000 Guineas, a one-turn mile. Those races looked like mere tune-ups when Tuesday was taken to the back of the field in the 1 1/2-mile Oaks at Epsom, finishing furiously to win a head bob over favored Emily Upjohn, Nashwa left a few lengths behind them.
Tuesday bounced to the moon coming back too quickly in the Irish Derby, then ran the best race anyone in this field has produced finishing second to subsequent Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Alpinista in the Yorkshire Oaks. That’s a 1 1/2-mile race, and if you watch, you can see Tuesday, really flying, go just slightly flat in the dying strides. Is it possible the winner of the 1 1/2-mile Oaks prefers a shorter trip? What she doesn’t prefer is the soft ground she got in her two French starts this fall. Watch out for Tuesday on Saturday.
Turf Sprint
Naval Crown and Creative Force, the Godolphin duo for the Turf Sprint, are just fine – Group 1 performers on their day. Neither has raced shorter than six furlongs, and the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint doesn’t seem like a great place to try that for the first time. Emaraaty Ana came to Del Mar and finished fourth in the 2021 Turf Sprint: This is a deeper, tougher race, and 6-year-old Emaraaty Ana is a year older, no faster. He comes from off the pace, while Flotus will be closer in the early stages, likely farther behind in the later portion. Go Bears Go began racing in cheek pieces a few starts ago and now is showing good gate speed. He won’t match Golden Pal’s steam and almost certainly won’t be winning.
Five Euros are in the Turf Sprint, won here in 2020 by the Ireland-based filly Glass Slippers. Glass Slippers didn’t have American star Golden Pal to beat, but Highfield Princess, easily the top Euro here, just might be capable of taking the fight to Golden Pal.
Highfield Princess comes to Keeneland rated a far stronger sprinter than Glass Slippers two years ago, having risen from a modest handicapper during her 2020 campaign to become a good horse in 2021 and, possibly, a great one this season. Her second to 2021 BC Mile winner Space Blues two summers ago in the City of York Stakes hinted at Highfield Princess’s quality, but no one could have seen her recent run of success coming.
The City of York is a seven-furlong contest, and that’s distance the mare mainly raced during the early phase of her career; she’s better going shorter. The six-furlong Duke of York Clipper Logistic Stakes in May marked Highfield Princess’s breakout. There, she raced with barely contained fire under regular rider Jason Hart, going off like a powder keg when Hart gave the mare her head a furlong out. Highfield Princess took a step back at Royal Ascot, sixth behind Naval Crown and Creative Force, but following a freshening she came back stronger. She hit a new peak and won her first Group 1 in the 6 1/2-furlong Prix Maurice de Gheest, though the Group 1 Nunthorpe over five furlongs and the Group 1 Flying Five, another five-furlong dash, showed Highfield Princes at her best.
In the Nunthorpe, she gave crack 2-year-old filly The Platinum Queen 24 pounds, let her lead for a half-mile, and blew past her with a wicked turn of foot. Highfield Princes is happy leading, too, as she did in the Flying Five at The Curragh, where another blistering late turn of foot carried her to a 3 1/4-length win. She has run turns plenty of times and always breaks well.
Princess tries to hammer Gold in the first Breeders’ Cup race on turf Saturday – let’s get it on.
Gauteng Summer Cup Final Log
The final log for the 2022 Betway Summer Cup has been released and should the 20 entries topping the table all be declared, the race will see 15 graded winners go head to head in Gauteng’s most celebrated race.
Scheduled to be run over 2000m at the Turffontein Racecourse on Saturday 26 November 2022, the Mike de Kock-trained Safe Passage is top of the log.
Winner of the Daily News 2000 in May this year, the four-year-old finished third behind Bingwa in the Allied Steelrode On A Mission Charity Mile last Saturday in his first run of the season.
Bingwa, meanwhile, has shot up the Betway Summer Cup log after that victory and now is second on the table, up from position 11.
Hollywoodbets Durban July heroine Sparkling Water is third after being in top spot earlier.
Red Saxon, trained by Joe Soma, has jumped from eighth to fourth position while Johan Janse van Vuuren’s Puerto Manzano is up from ninth to fifth.
Triple Tiara winner Rain in Holland has dropped three places and finds herself sixth on the log after her disappointing run in the Pinnacle Stakes over 1400m on Saturday, her first run in 182 days.
It is interesting to note that seven runners in the top 20 on the Betway Summer Cup log are carded to contest the Grade 3 Victory Moon Stakes at Turffontein this coming Saturday, 5 November.
With Perfect Witness, Zeus, Aragosta, Nebraas, Second Base, William Robertson and Sparkling Water having their final prep run before the Betway Summer Cup, it could give an indication of how these runners are shaping up ahead of the big day.
Thanks to new sponsor Betway, the stakes for Johannesburg’s flagship race has been increased to R2,5-million.
Final declarations are due by 11h00 on Monday 21 November, when the Barrier Draw will take place.
FINAL BETWAY SUMMER CUP LOG – 1/11/2022 (In order log position, horse, age and sex, merit rating, trainer):
1 Safe Passage (4G) 122 Mike de Kock
2 Bingwa (5G) 123 J A Janse van Vuuren
3 Sparkling Water (5M) 122 Mike de Kock
4 Red Saxon (4G) 116 Joe Soma
5 Puerto Manzano (ARG) (5G) 120 J A Janse van Vuuren
6 Rain In Holland (4F) 118 Sean Tarry
7 William Robertson (4G) 125 Corne Spies
8 Astrix (6G) 124 J A Janse van Vuuren
9 Mk’s Pride (5H) 122 Mike de Kock
10 Aragosta (4G) 118 Mike de Kock
11 Light Of The Moon (4F) 110 B Botes / Y Vosloo
12 Nebraas (6G) 118 Sean Tarry
13 Second Base (5G) 117 J A Janse van Vuuren
14 Pink Tourmaline (5M) 108 Brett Crawford
15 Shangani (5G) 117 J A Janse van Vuuren
16 Perfect Witness (4F) 109 Candice Dawson
17 Zeus (4C) 108 Fabian Habib
18 Raiseahallelujah (5G) 99 Candice Dawson
19 Jaimala (5G) 101 Ashley Fortune
20 Imperial Ruby (6G) 107 Corne Spies
NEXT ALPHEBETICAL ORDER
Outofthedarkness (4G) 106 J A Janse van Vuuren
Pyromaniac (4G) 108 Sean Tarry
Shango (6G) 108 Sean Tarry
Super Silvano (6G) 108 Brett Crawford
Zillzaal (7G) 116 Sean Tarry
REST OF THE ENTRIES IN MR ORDER
Majestic Mozart (7G) 115 Ashley Fortune
Sovereign Spirit (7G) 113 Ashley Fortune
Divine Odyssey (8G) 113 J A Janse van Vuuren
Pamushana’s Pride (5G) 113 Alec Laird
Marigold Hotel (4F) 110 Sean Tarry
Cornish Pomodoro (6G) 107 Sean Tarry
Black Thorn (5G) 103 Sean Tarry
Reunion (5G) 103 J A Janse van Vuuren
Willow Express (5G) 101 Sean Tarry
Ikigai (6H) 100 Sean Tarry
Litigation (4C) 99 Sean Tarry
Indlamu (5H) 99 Sean Tarry
Paisley Park (5G) 98 Sean Tarry
Platinum Sky (4G) 98 Sean Tarry
Clafoutis (4F) 95 Mike de Kock
Sudden Star (6G) 95 B Botes / Y Vosloo
Motown Magic (4G) 91 Mike de Kock
Prince Evlanoff (6G) 81 Alec Laird
HORSES SCRATCHED
Decorated, Hoedspruit, Johnny Hero, King’s Crusade, Marchingontogether, Sprinkles, Super Silver, Youcanthurrylove
Flightline, horse of the moment, a dream for one of the owners from Bucks County
The Inquirer.com
West Point Thoroughbreds president Terry Finley, a part-owner of Flightline, grew up in Levittown.
by Mike Jensen
They’re selling a dream, or a percentage of one. Put down your money, join the celebrants heading for the winner’s circle. Except in a tough industry, the odds keep getting longer. The field of potential investors thins. The profit margins narrow.
And yet …
“Here’s the dream,” said West Point Thoroughbreds president Terry Finley, who grew up in Bucks County.
Another nice sentence on your bio: “In the September 2022 World’s Best Racehorse Rankings, he was given a rating of 139, the highest ever awarded to a runner on the dirt.”
Flightline, with Juan Leyva up, gallops during an early morning training session at Keeneland Race Course on Oct. 27. That Pacific Classic performance in Southern California was, in fact, breathtaking. Now imagine if you are the owners. Finley’s West Point syndicate owns 17½% of the morning-line favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky.
In many ways, Flightline represents the culmination of Finley’s several decades in the game, and proof that a tweak in his business model paid off.
While West Point Thoroughbreds bought some quality horses over the years for its syndicate, and ended up with a share of a Kentucky Derby winner, nothing had hit this big.
“We haven’t had a champion yet,” said Finley, who always keeps a small ownership stake for the company. “We haven’t had an Eclipse Award winner. Quite frankly, it’s bugged me. I’d say, I hope I don’t work a whole career [and not get one]. … It’s so hard to get – 20,000 foals every year, to 15 Eclipse Award winners.”
Horse sense
The business tweak? Instead of owning all of a horse bought for, say, $100,000 at a sale, what about a smaller percentage of a million-dollar horse?
“A horse costs $100,000, you’re giving up something, either physical, in pedigree, or mental,” Finley said.
Flightline, with jockey Flavien Prat up, won the Met Mile at Belmont Park in June. In his mind, Finley had been lucky to buy a share of Always Dreaming two months before the colt won the 2017 Kentucky Derby, since Finley had gotten the horse’s primary owner into the game. “We paid an outrageous price, but everything worked out,” he said.
That experience got him thinking, Finley said.
Building a business relationship with Kentucky bloodstock agent David Ingordo was key here, Finley said, since it was Ingordo who had been watching Flightline all along, and made the calls to put an ownership group together on the fly, the horse available at a 2019 Saratoga yearling sale. Finley was an easy sell to be part of a five-way ownership split.
“He was the one who picked [2010 horse of the year] Zenyatta,” Finley said of Ingordo. “He loved to put people together. I knew I had to bring in a real talented person to be our selector.”
This whole group came together quickly, the breeder keeping a share, the yearling sale price going for $1 million. West Point’s 17½% share is further split between seven investors, “across the country,” Finley said.
On going after a horse with a higher price tag, “I basically was able to say to them, ‘Look, it’s more risk,’” Finley said. “Your chances are improved somewhat. It’s not dramatic. If you spend $300,000, it’s long odds. If you spend a million, it’s substantially better, but still long odds. I think it’s the way to put us in the queue to get really good horses.”
He’s saying that he’s not trying to scam his customers. If you pay more for a random horse, he said, “Just know that it’s probably going to be a bigger loss for us.”
Just not with Flightline. After an injury, the horse didn’t race as a 2-year-old, and wasn’t ready for the 3-year-old Derby trail. Flightline’s debut was a Maiden Special Weight race at Santa Anita in April 2021. Trained by John Sadler from the start, Flightline’s initial victory was by 13¼ lengths. Next up, an allowance race in September 2021 at Del Mar. This 12¾-length victory had Finley’s full attention.
Terry Finley is the president and CEO of West Point Thoroughbreds, a partner in Breeders’ Cup Classic favorite Flightline. “He kind of broke a step slow — they kind of race-rode against him,” Finley said. “He just bulled his way through, but not in a mean way. He got through because he was like, ‘I’m a superstar and you just need to part ways.” Then he just rode off. I said, ‘This is not normal.’”
The entire horse racing world has seen it by now.
“I had never seen a horse move like him — he just never seems to be doing it with any ounce of effort,” Finley said. “It’s just there, a gift from God. Somebody said to me, he’s so smooth, you could put a glass of water on the jockey’s helmet and it wouldn’t spill an ounce.”
The Pacific Classic, a huge late-season West Coast race, was more than confirmation. Finley got to Del Mar, where the turf meets the surf just north of San Diego.
“When they went by us the first time, he just looked very comfortable,” Finley said. “He was still just galloping along. Even turning on to the backside, he was second. I remember saying, with these kinds of horses, if he wins by 10, I’ll just be shocked. These were very legitimate horses, [including] a Dubai World Cup winner.”
When Flightline started pushing on the other horses, Finley said, he had no idea what he was about to witness.
“It’s been dramatic, the uptick in interest,” Finley said of the postrace hoopla. “I’m talking from an industry standpoint. We know that we — I don’t want to say struggle, but we battle to get any kind of space in the consciousness of the sporting public. That’s what I was happy about, what all the partners are happy about. If you don’t win on the first Saturday in May, if it’s not the Derby or the Triple Crown races, people don’t always notice. We’ve got a horse people are starting to talk about.”
Finley remembers seeing this horse for the first time at the Saratoga sale, saying to himself, “Damn, that’s the way they’re supposed to look.”
But you can’t buy every horse that looks beautiful, and not every beautiful horse has what it takes after it leaves a starting gate.
“So similar to college receivers — they get to the big dance, they’re just not good enough,” Finley said of most of them. “They can’t separate from the defensive backs.”
Terry Finley, the president and CEO of West Point Thoroughbreds, at Keeneland for Flightline’s Oct. 27 early-morning gallop. He wasn’t alone, even before dawn. If Flightline separates again, in the race that virtually every older horse in the world that can get the classic mile-and-a-quarter distance is aimed toward, he’ll land in his sport’s history books. Look for it under impossible dreams, realized.
“He grabbed you at first sight,” Finley said.
Formguides And Selections For Breeders Cup Saturday’s 12 Race Meeting
1 16H30 – Race 1 – Maiden Special Weight – Dirt
Watch out for: NEST (6)
On Fire Smith Grabs Five-timer, Khumalo Treble
Gavin Smith has had 12 in the last two meetings at Fairview as he followed his seven-timer last Friday with a five-timer today.
Three of his wins today were ridden by S’Manga Khumalo.
Smith overtook Brett Crawford as the trainer in the country who has had most winners this season.
He is on 36 to Crawford’s 35 and Justin Snaith’s 34.
Smith has done it at a strike rate of 11.81%.
He is five clear of Alan Greeff in the race for the East Cape trainers title.
Khumalo’s treble saw him levelling the race for the East Cape Jockeys Championship.
He and Luyolo Mxothwa have both ridden 20 winners in the East Cape this season at respective strike rates of 20.83% and 18.35% respectively.
Khumalo has ridden 55 winners countrywide at 17.92%, which puts him in third place on the national log 33 wins behind Keagan de Melo.
Today’s Question
Which Cheltenham-based trainer once said about his state-of-the-art yard, “We’ve got everything here bar an excuse.”
Turffontein Standside Fields
Hollywoodbets Kenilworth Fields
Hollywoodbets Greyville Turf Fields
Today’s Question Answer
Jumps trainer Jonjo O’Neill was talking about his Jackdaws Castle Training Centre.
The training centre is owned by Britain and Ireland’s biggest owner in jumps racing, the legendary Irishman JP McManus, who is also one of the biggest punters in Britain and Ireland.
