School conferences. Hair cut. Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred assignments (Darrel McHargue and Mike Gathagan with Preakness memories). NSA Board Meeting. DocWeek Announcement Party. And Cyber Ninja crammed in there somewhere.
Busy Friday. Busier Saturday. Busiest Sunday. Something like that. A runner today. A free day, as we said 10 days ago when Imarajan ran. He didn’t perform well, so it didn’t feel free. Felt heavy. Burdensome. Yeah, that’s the way it goes.
Today will build up to the ninth race at Laurel Park, 4:28, 12-1 on the morning line, change the rider to J.G. Torrealba after Forest Boyce was injured (not seriously, whew, last weekend). We break from post two in a field of 10, should be some scratches in a tough two-other-than allowance at the Maryland oval. First day of turf, I think.
Too short for him, but an easy start and a prudent place to see how much flat desire/ability he still possesses. A 2-mile jump race at Old Dominion Point-to-Point certainly isn’t the blue-print prep for today but the 5-year-old had done everything by blue print so far – homebred for George Krikorian, trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, work gradually/systematically through conditions, freshen with winter vacations – and get stuck in the dreaded two-other-than condition. We’ve been here before.
If this works, Cyber Ninja will have long turf races all year long – the John’s Call, the Nashville Gold Cup, etc. If it doesn’t, we transition to jumping with lucrative maiden races all year long. That is one great benefit of steeplechasing, a horse with two wins, two seconds, fives thirds, a stakes placing and $270,406 goes back to being a maiden. In due course, we’ll see what happens today.
An expected five runners tomorrow and probably three Sunday. Busy is good.
