Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Behind Every Good Woman…

This is the final Saratoga Diary of the 2009 racing season. John Pricci's Morning Line Blog and Feature Race Analysis Resumes Friday with opening day of the Belmont Fall Meet


SARATOGA SPRINGS, September 9, 2009--The year of the filly, indeed,

It was Rachel and Rice and everything nice. It’s always that way when given a chance to witness history.

Rachel Alexandra, the thoroughbred, runs like a girl. Linda Rice, the horse woman, trains like a girl. And between them, they made history.

When history is rewritten in Saratoga, that’s saying something. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t tip our cap to a couple of gents who helped make history possible.

In the largest measure, Rachel Alexandra’s amazing display of speed and stamina is a credit to the filly, period.

And to her handlers, also. There’s still the little matter of female thoroughbreds going in and out of cycle that can affect performance.

The horsemen around the filly--Asmussen, Blasi, Terry--did their jobs. And her owners, Jackson and McCormack, gave her the opportunity.

But Rachel’s victory must be shared with another male, Admiral Rous, a handicapper with the English Jockey Club. Rous developed the concept of weight-for-age which in theory measures the relationship of age to physical maturity.

And with a few minor tweaks here and there, Rous’ original scale has remained virtually unchanged since its inception in the 1860s.

Amazing that at the end of the Woodward’s nine furlongs, a three-year-old filly defeated a four-your-old by a head, getting an eight-pound pull in the weights.

How do it know?


Meanwhile, Linda Rice’s horses, especially the 21 that finished first, all looked the part and performed at a high level.

We are happy for her achievement and those of her staff for their singular success. But without P. J. Campo’s condition book it could never have happened.

Trainers win meet titles when their horses have been brought to peak condition and fit the conditions.

Turf sprints, especially of the 5-½ furlong variety, have become a dominant condition on the New York racing scene. And no trainer has more turf-sprint specialists under their shedrow than Linda Rice.

Rice’s horses won these races in bunches. Then, when the courses became more speed favoring at meet’s end, and with Rice aggressively spotting her horses in search of the title, her sprinters stretched out successfully.

Sometimes race dynamics played a role, too, when sprinters were left alone on the lead. (See Mother Russia in the fourth race on the Woodward under-card).

But it’s the new NYRA condition book, one that, in the interests of betting handle, stresses quantity over quality, that helped make Rice’s achievement possible.

Plenty of other trainers won this condition, too. But any horseman, any horseman, worthy of stalls on the NYRA circuit can get a horse ready to zip five and-a-half on the grass.

And how are these kinds of races--on a circuit that boasts the strongest and deepest Grade 1 program in the world--supposed to improve the sport, and the breed, exactly?

None of this is the fault of Linda Rice or Rachel Alexandra, however. They used their talents to play the hands they were dealt. Kudos to them both for providing the best memories of Saratoga 2009.

Other Lasting Impressions of the Spa Meet Past:

The six-horse photo and the crowd’s reaction to every replay.

Veteran Richard Migliore winning the Grade 1 Test Stakes.

Watching Salve Germania virtually run off in the post parade and winning the Ballston Spa Stakes, anyway.

The old building rockin’ and rollin’ as Macho Again chased Rachel down the stretch.

A playful Boss rockin’ SPAC.

Lining up a solid five minutes waiting to enter the Woodward paddock.

“The Chief” and Liz Jerkens taking their seats at the annual New York Turf Writers awards dinner.

Hardscrabble press box reporters applauding Rachel’s victory.

Music Note’s G1 Ballerina.

The stuffed zucchini flowers at Augie's.

Watching assistant trainer/exercise rider/jockey Danielle Hodsdon win a flat race one day and a jump race the next.

Watching the Jackson family’s next star, Hot Dixie Chick.

Pyro, back from knee surgery, winning the Forego.

The field strung out for a quarter mile in the stretch run of that two-mile race.

Icon Project's continued development dominating the Personal Ensign.

Summer Bird proving he’s more than a marathoner with his sharp Travers score.

Vineyard Haven’s amazing comeback to win the King’s Bishop in a triumphant return to Saratoga.

The continued development of jockey Rajiv Maragh.

A Travers-size crowd to see Rachel Alexandra school in the paddock Thursday of Woodward week.

The classy, unflappable Ramon Dominguez winning his first Saratoga riding title.

Careless Jewel’s Alabama.

Hattie’s fried chicken, the best on the planet.

The amazing Fabulous Strike’s guts to win the G2 Vanderbilt.

Billy Badgett‘s comeback.

The onion rings at Juicy Burgers.

Bob Baffert, as a humble Hall of Famer.

Justenuffhumor raising his game, again, to win the G2 Bernard Baruch.

Graham Motion’s consistency.

Fettucini Portobello at Sergio's.

Spinners wrapped around double the length of the stretch for the popular long-sleeve tee-shirt giveaway, a rare winning favorite at the meet.

Rachel’s Haskell (road trip).

Paddock judges allowing an extra circumference of the Woodward walking ring so that fans could get a second look at the filly.

Trainer Larry Jones' warm acceptance speech at the Turf Writers’ dinner.

Parents with young children at the races.

Frank’s backyard garden at Sperry’s.

Horse vans leaving the backside on closing day, heading to parts unknown.

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Sunday, September 06, 2009

Rachel: Racing’s Great Bay Hope

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY, September 6, 2009--It’s 12:41 as we begin writing this post and all anyone still wants to take about is the filly.

With her record-making performance in yesterday’s 56th Woodward Stakes, it’s OK to give her the one-name treatment. Just call her Rachel.

Inquiring minds wanted to know things and the questions began in the immediate aftermath of a truly remarkable performance.

I’m still thinking about some o my remarkable favorites. Someone mentioned Holy Bull’s Travers. There’s Personal Ensign’s Distaff. Slew’s Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Forego nailing Honest Pleasure from the center of Belmont Park’s grandstand. Meadow Star and Lite Light, a battle that took the camera 10 minutes to discern.

What does it matter, really? When these things occur the game defines itself in the best way possible. If you love horses and love racing, it’s a privilege to bear witness.

I know I don’t expect to see anything like it again.

Until Jess Jackson decides the only challenge left is the Grand National.


I was almost finished with my Woodward wrap-up Saturday evening when someone asked: “Can you hardly wait for her to meet Zenyatta?”

I can wait to see Rachel Alexandra run next as a four-year-old. The Horse of the Year dance is over. It ended at the Woodward finish line on Saturday.

No need to recall the rest of her season. If your memory needs jogging, follow Casey’s advice: You can look it up.

Zenyatta can win another 10 in succession. Almost anything pales in comparison.

The good news for Breeders’ Cup fans is--a Beldame showdown notwithstanding--that a victory over Sea the Stars in the Classic would give Zenyatta boosters a glimmer of hope.

“Don’t you want to see Rachel meet Zenyatta at a mile and a quarter? It’s the classic distance. I’m not sure Rachel can go a mile and a quarter,” someone said.

I was too polite to reply “I’m not sure you don’t need shock therapy.”

The counter to the distance postulate is a four-letter word: P-A-C-E.

Anyone who believes Rachel Alexandra’s effort in the final sixteenth of the Woodward was indicative of a horse that can’t stay 10 furlongs clearly doesn’t understand pace.

The early fractions were :22.85 and :46.41. Around a turn!

Getting an eight-pound allowance for sex and age, Rachel raced virtually head to head with a Belmont winner, was hounded from close range by last year’s Woodward runnerup and allowed a recent dozen length winner over the track and distance to sit a perfect trip.

Rachel Alexandra defeated Macho Again--last behind the brutal pace and was ridden pluperfectly, inside-out, by Robby Albarado--by a head in 1:48.29. It was the fastest two-turn Woodward run at Saratoga.

The Rachel chasers eventually finished sixth by 18 lengths, seventh by 20-½, and the third one was eased.

Take a second to reflect on that. Over four decades I’ve watched about four gazillion races? Many of them twice. The result is as astonishing in reflection as it was live.

Now it’s 22 hours later and I still haven’t met an observer who didn’t believe her beaten with a furlong left to run.

There is no need for Rachel Alexandra to run again this year. There’s one world left to conquer but there’s no rule that it has to be in this calendar year. But there is a concern.

This filly has a remarkable constitution and recovers quickly from efforts. Her preparation for the Woodward was a tad light because trainer Steve Asmussen couldn’t train her on the Oklahoma track the way he wanted, a surface that builds wind and takes the edge off.

Unflappable as she was when surrounded in a standing-room-only paddock, she was a little too energetic parading postward, bucking and unseating Calvin Borel. But she was composed enough to not run off, waiting for her rider to remount.

The point here is that she may not stand for an extended vacation. Do you turn her out? Let her be a horse?

Turning horses out is good for them. Allows them grow, recharge the batteries. But have her running around free in some paddock somewhere? I just don’t see Asmussen letting her out of his sight.

Given her recuperative powers, there’s the other philosophy: Run them when they’re good.

Jess Jackson spent his money buying potential greatness and set out to prove it the only place it counts, between the fences. Yesterday he gave racing an indelible memory.

Jackson has often said that Rachel tells him when to run. Perhaps she will before this year ends. If common sense were the measure, all other factors notwithstanding, she has much more to lose than gain at this juncture.

Every time Rachel Alexandra steps on a racetrack an industry holds its breath. She’s the biggest star in the game. The last two Woodwards drew 22,000 and 31,000 fans, respectively.

The 2008 attraction was Curlin, a reigning Horse of the Year. Yesterday, it was the three-year-old filly Rachel Alexandra. She was worth an estimated 10- to 15,000 people.

This morning on NPR radio, Rachel Alexandra’s Woodward victory was the lead news story. Even without national television people are beginning to notice a race horse again.

One, anyway.

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Saturday, September 05, 2009

“She’s In a League of Her Own”

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY, September 5, 2009--She was beat.

With less than a furlong to go in the 56th running of the Woodward, for three-year-olds and up at weight for age, the extremely fast early fractions at this demanding two-turn distance at the old Spa were taking their toll.

Bullsbay, the Whitney winner, surged up between horses with another Grade 1 winner Macho Again, racing off Bullsbay’s right hip. Then the gritty gray began to level off in earnest.

Racing fans and handicappers used to watching such developments had to think she was beaten. No one I spoke with in the immediate aftermath, no one, thought otherwise.

But the filly reached down, Calvin asking her for her life, as the racetrackers say, and she lengthened her stride, not quite re-breaking, but determinedly resurgent.

“Jumping” forward is what Borel calls it.

Now, with less than a sixteenth of a mile remaining, she was opening ground but the Jim Dandy and Stephen Foster winner lengthened his stride, too.

“It’s going to be dramatically close,” Tom Durkin warned the 31,171 onlookers.

With Rachel Alexandra straining into her bridle, and with Borel rhythmically pushing with his right hand, whipping with his left, they dug in. Somehow, they got to the wire first.

“At 22 and change, I started worrying,” said her trainer, Steve Asmussen. “I worried until they put her number up. I can’t say enough about the race she put in today under the circumstances.”

I can: She has a pair.

“I never thought I had her,” said Borel’s close friend Robby Albarado, rider of Macho Again. “You never think you have champions.

“Champions show different dimensions. She’s in a league of her own. She has beaten every top division we have in racing. Older horses, her age, it doesn’t matter. No matter what they throw at her, she’ll beat them.”

Three-year-old fillies have tried to win this race, and haven’t in 55 attempts. It was worthy of a standing ovation, which is exactly what the fans lining the winners’ circle, and even some in the press box, gave her.

“I wanted to win this race bad,” Borel said after dismounting from Maria’s Charm, an also-rain in the day’s 11th race.

“I had to go out there and not mess it up. [The win] took the load off me.”

And the load was a heavy one.

An excited sun-drenched crowd lined the rails three deep on both side of the horse path taken by the horses stabled across the street at the Oklahoma training track.

The first instant you knew the horses would soon be in the paddock, was a cameraman lugging his hand-held racing to get into position as the horses walked over. Then came the whooping and hollering.

The older males reacted, a slight buck-jump or two, here and there. Rachel walked in politely, her ears providing all the body language needed for the moment.

Look at all these people.

It took credentialed media, myself and Brad Telias from CBS Radio, to name just two, a solid five minutes to get past security into the paddock.

It was a panorama like no other I’ve seen in the history of this old course. Fans lined the fences five deep, straining to get a closer look, and, to their credit, the field was given an extra circumference to travel so that all might get a look.

The atmosphere was charged but reserved, almost out of respect for the moment and perhaps thinking let’s not get this filly charged up any more than need be. All the horses were well comported.

An estimated 500 people followed the horses up the gap that led to the racetrack. As I awaited the elevator to take me up to the press level, there was a commotion trackside.

When I arrived in the box, I asked Ed Fountaine of the New York Post what the fuss was about. “The filly dumped Borel.”

I didn’t believe him, repeated my question, he repeated his answer, and I turned to my right to get verification from Paul Moran, doing a turn for the Associated Press at this meet.

“Yeah, she bucked a bit, Calvin came off, then she stood there waiting for him to get back on.”

“Really?”

Yeah.

The horses lined up like Noah’s crew, two by two, and walked slowly to the starting gate in front of the stands. The loaded without incident and they were off without a hitch.

Borel knew there would be some race riding at the filly’s expense. That’s the way this game is played.

Borel wanted the racetrack and sent her to the front, but was joined immediately on her inside by Belmont inner Da’ Tara and on the outside by the speedy Past the Point.

Cool Coal Man, settled in, covered up in European fashion, saving ground behind the dueling leaders. Bullsbay had two beaten and Macho Again was last of eight.

The pace was demanding on this racetrack at the two-turn distance, a quarter-mile in :22.85 and a half-mile in :46.41. Rachel Alexandra was pressured throughout but looked to be traveling at a comfortable pace for her.

Following six furlongs in 1:10.54, her two early prompters had had enough. It’s A Bird made a move toward the lead, followed by Bullsbay, and Macho Again was beginning to roll from the back of the pack.

But just like she’s done so often this year, she put more ground between herself and her rivals after straightening away. But before she went another furlong, the pace was taking its toll and the runners-up were in full flight.

The record books will show that Rachel Alexandra was a head in front of Macho Again in a race where the ancient scale of weights handicapped the race peerlessly. Older males must spot three-year-old fillies eight pounds going nine furlongs in early September.

And it was almost a dead heat.

As for her two prompters, they finished sixth and last, respectively, Da’ Tara eased under the wire by Alan Garcia.

Previously a Belmont Fall fixture, the final time of 1:48.29 was the fastest of four Woodwards run at Saratoga, besting Lawyer Ron’s mark by 31/100s set two years ago.

“I was most concerned of any of the races we’ve been in,” said Asmussen. “There were variables we hadn’t faced in her previous races. It was a challenge for her.”

“She’s been tested early two or three times now,” said owner Jess Jackson, who raced onto the track to greet his filly and giving Borel a kiss with the rider still on her back.

“She’s had the courage and fortitude to finish, and with an attitude to hang in there and win. That’s a very exceptional horse, male or female.”

“Today she made history,” her rider said. “It was like winning the Kentucky Derby.”


* * *

12:14 PM She’s being hailed as “Alexandra the Great.”

Now, there’s nothing to it but to do it. And this will be her toughest test. No hyperbole there, make no mistake. These are older males!

There will be some “race-ridin’” going on at 5:52 PM today. Of that I’m certain. Rachel Alexandra would indelibly stamp her greatness with a victory under these circumstances.

For Calvin Borel, it could be the defining moment in what has been a career year, one that not many, if any, jockeys have had, in relation to major races and storylines.

All-time great or not, Rachel Alexandra is the definition of a modern equine legend. Her presence had the picnicers lining the gates of this old course from 7 AM. On Union Avenue, anyway. That’s Travers day stuff.

This may be college football day around the country but it’s still only Woodward day here.

There were nearly 35,000 fans here on Travers day in the rain. Today is a Chamber of Commerce day, pristine. It will be interesting to see the final tally.

This meeting, attendance wise, depends on two variables: the weather and the calendar. They’ve got the weather today. But the calendar, the vacation/school calendar, is decidedly against any records being set.

There were about 22,572 for Curlin last year. My guess is that a superstar filly is worth more than an appearance by a reigning Horse of the Year.

When I arrived in a press parking area this morning about 10:15, nearly three hours before post time, that section of the lot was half full. Why?

“The filly,” I was told.

Via e-mails, racing friends cannot believe they won't see the filly on national television today. I told them that anything that happens in this game shouldn't surprise anyone.

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