Today’s news…Fastest horse in Canada? …Caroline Duquet wins her first race, Part 2 of the Lindros story…
SMASHING!
Hollywood Hit gets in Bullet range
Three-year-old speedball HOLLYWOOD HIT had jaws dropping and his connections dancing as he streaked to an eye popping 5 1/2 length win in the overnight KING CORRIE STAKES last night at Woodbine.
On a Polytrack that was very, very fast – the temperature was a mere 6 degrees or so (Celcius), it was windy andm well the Poly got very quick), HOLLYWOOD HIT stopped the timer in 1:07.38, crushing the previous record set by Legal Move (1:08.31) by almost a full second.
And get this – the fastest 6 furlongs at Woodbine before that was the 1:08 set by Great Defender on the old dirt track a few years ago.
We may never see a 1:07 and change again.
The Beyer Figure awarded to the son of Cactus Ridge was 108,a career best, and got him close to Canadian champ Fatal Bullet, who is headed to the Breeders’ Cup again.
You might consider marking last night’s track record with an asterisk because of the conditions last night ($12,500 claimers went in 1:09.86) and the field that HOLLYWOOD HIT beat – well, horses like LEGAL MOVE and STUCK IN TRAFFIC are certainly short of their best form these days – was dicey at best.
But the Oklahoma-bred gelding was visually impressive as he won under a hand ride and was drawing away.
So, while the waters will get a whole lot deeper for the Hit, he should be fun to watch as he heads for his next race.
Trainer Terry Jordan, who got the horse when Peter Redekop bought the youngster from breeder C.R. Trout, said he didn’t know about the Breeders’ Cup but said that they had “something else in mind” for the horse but he told THE SCORE “I’ll tell you later”.
The Kennedy Road, Grade 3, in November is the only local race left for the Hit, but hey there’s always big events elsewhere too.
Redekop paid a reported $250,000 for the Hit from Trout.
FROM DAILY RACING FORM
HIGHEST BEYER FIGURES FOR SPRINTERS IN 2009
HORSE TRK DATE DIST BEYER
This Ones for Phil GP 24 Jan 6F 115
Notonthesamepage GP 03 Jan 6F 113
Warrior’s Reward CD 01 May 7F 113
Fabulous Strike SAR 09 Aug 6F 112
Fabulous Strike BEL 06 Jun 6F 111
Ikigai GP 17 Jan 6F 111
Munnings BEL 05 Jul 7F 111
Cash Refund CD 25 Apr 6F 110
Munnings BEL 06 Jun 7F 110
Quality Road SAR 03 Aug 6 1/2F 110
Zensational DMR 08 Aug 6F 110
Fatal Bullet WO 19 Jul 6 1/2F 109
Game Face (f) CRC 11 Jul 6F 109
Go Go Shoot MTH 06 Jun 6F 109
Go Go Shoot SAR 09 Aug 6F 109
Just Ben BEL 06 Jun 7F 109
Light Green (f) BEL 15 May 6F 109
You Luckie Mann GP 24 Jan 6F 109
Benny the Bull BEL 06 Jun 6F 108
Big Drama GP 28 Mar 7F 108
HOLLYWOOD HIT WO 30 Sept 6F 108
Munnings CD 01 May 7F 108
Devoted Magic SA 07 Jan 6 1/2F 107
Elusive Heat (f ) GP 29 Jan 6F 107
Music Note (f) SAR 29 Aug 7F 107
Rollers BEL 17 Jun 6F 107
WIN FULFILLED!
Woodbine Wed. night
Sweet! Caroline! CAROLINE DUQUET got her first win last night in the last race at Woodbine. NORM FILES PHOTO.
Apprentice CAROLINE DUQUET may have thought her first win was never going to come but as the lights stated to fade at Woodbine last night, there she was, in the winner’s circle for the first time.
DUQUET, who had missed by a long nose in an earlier race, rode HONOUR FULFILLED for C. Scott Abbott Racing and trainer Mike Doyle to a 1 length score in the maiden claimer at 12 to 1.
Duquet came in from western Canada 2 years ago and has been training to be a jockey under agent MIKE LUIDER for some time.
Other winners last night included trainer RALPH BIAMONTE, he won 2 races with the 2yo maiden HEAVY STEVE (Delaware Township) and GRAEME WAFER (Graeme Hall).
Lorna Possler and trainer Paul Herrington celebrated their first Woodbine win with the 2yo filly TWO WONDERS, a Three Wonders filly who was given a super ride by jockey Emma-Jaybe Wilson to win her maiden for $62,500.
GEMSWICK PARK, who went from a graded stakes winner to a filly seemingly lost in dull form,came back to life at Woodbine for new trainer Mark Casse, winning an allowance last night while riding what seemed to be an inside bias.
The Kentucky-bred Speightstown gal is owned by Eugene Melnyk.
SOMETIMES, IT’S A NUMBERS GAME
The new TODOS STAT (see link on main page of Jen’s Thoroughblog) gave us winners like Graeme Wafer and Your Fantasy last night and is a new way of tabbing a horse’s class for each race.
Currently a hit in the Hong Kong racing business, the TODOS offer a number and graph that can help you eliminate horses who are heavily bet but going off form.
And the IN-FORM SHEETS, also a handicapping tool, has recently signed RICHARD ENGLANDER to promote the business in the United States. Englander, who races horses at Woodbine and other locations has enodred the In-Form sheets for some times.
To check out Todos and In-Form, see my links list on the main page of Thoroughblog.
EXCERPT FROM SECOND CHANCE HORSES
Part 2 of Chapter 11
LINDROS and IMPROPRIETY
(Part 1 was on yesterday’s post)
Lindros spent the winter of 2000 in Florida with a string of DePaulo’s runners and returned to Woodbine for one of the first prep races for the Plate — the Achievement Stakes. Racing with the antibleeder
medication Lasix for the first time, Lindros trailed through the six-furlong race and lost by twenty-two lengths.
DePaulo went back to the drawing board with Lindros, putting him in allowance races and high claiming events in the hopes of rediscovering that flash of brilliance from the colt’s debut. But it would not be until November of that year before Lindros won again — a $32,000 claiming race from which he was claimed away
from Patten and DePaulo.
Mike Wright Jr., a leading trainer at Woodbine, took the horse that day for Vancouver’s Jerome Rak, owner of Prairie Star Stable.
Lindros became tough to handle as he matured, and Wright Jr. remembers many mornings when his exercise riders would wince when they knew it was their turn to ride the horse.
“He would put his head down, right between his knees and just go,” said Wright Jr. “He was one of the toughest ones I have ever seen. Not many of my riders could get him to slow down.”
The Wright Jr. barn spent the next winter at Laurel Park racecourse in Maryland, a track that quickly became a favorite surface for Lindros. Four years old and newly gelded, Lindros reeled off three consecutive wins in less than a month as he worked his way through his conditions in allowance events. A romp in a
seven-furlong test over a treacherously deep surface earned him a whopping 107 Beyer Speed Figure from Daily Racing Form, suggesting he was one of the fastest sprinters on the continent at the time. The Speed Figure is a calculation based on running time and track condition speed, with the three-figure numbers being exceptionally
good.
“I’ll never forget that day,” said Wright Jr. “The announcer yelled out ‘and here comes Lindros; he shoots, he scores.’ ”
That winter, physical wear and tear began to take their toll on Lindros, in particular on his suspensory ligaments in both front legs, and upon returning to Canada, he was sent to a swimming
facility near Woodbine.
He was brought back to the races in November 2001 and won at Woodbine and Laurel through June of the following year, but the more he raced, the more his suspensories bothered him.
The last two wins of his career came in $12,500 and $20,000 claiming events before leg problems sidelined him again that summer.
“I tried to bring him back in 2003 in the spring, but he just wasn’t going to hold up,” said Wright Jr.
Lindros was retired with nine wins in twenty-eight starts and earnings of $198,616 (Canadian).
In May 2003, Rak donated Lindros to LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, Ontario’s only Thoroughbred adoption and placement program, and the gelding was sent to one of its foster farms run by horse owner Mary Zimmerman.
“I remember he was wound up like a top,” said Zimmerman. “He was nervous and a stall walker. He just wanted to be outside. He hated being alone in the barn.”
Zimmerman had Lindros only until December when a former employee, Uli Paulischta, then twenty-four years old, inquired about adopting the horse as a teaser for a Standardbred farm she
was managing in Schomberg, Ontario.
For more than a year Lindros was the man in charge at White Sands Farm, and according to Paulischta, he adapted well. Lindros worked as a teaser to determine whether mares were ready to be bred and served as a companion for non-pregnant mares.
read the next excerpt tomorrow!
and pick up a copy of SECOND CHANCE HORSES, at www.exclusivelyequine.com
