A few days amiss here. That’s the way it goes sometimes.
The spring jump season coming to a close at Radnor, Evan Dwan with a double. Clancy Bloodstock graduate Scoop The Pot winning the finale for Kate and Bernie Dalton. Some spring for them. Journalism barging his way to win the Preakness, tough trip, tough horse. What’s that saying? Don’t ever go inside one horse and don’t ever go outside three. Hopefully a showdown at the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga. Hey, did you know the Belmont Special is back? Time to advertise.
Entering Pietrelcina and Koru for races at Laurel Park this morning. Don’t get excited, we’ve been doing that for a week. Laurel Park takes entries for 25 races this morning. They’ll use eight. Funny how more options leads to fewer opportunities. In England, there has been consternation recently when races were scrapped when they attracted fewer than four entries. I laughed. At Laurel Park today, there will be 17 races scrapped. Seventeen. We entered Koru in a maiden claimer extra, a good place to start his season. We entered Pietrelcina in a Maryland-bred maiden, just to get a race into him before a hurdle start in June. Both races on turf. Both could go. Neither could go. Or one could go with a combination of horses entered in both. Get it?
And you used to be able to train a horse for a specific race. What a thought.
As for Riverdee this spring, thanks mainly to Cool Jet’s Grade 1 stakes score, we are atop the standings, $500 ahead of Bruton Street-US. Money left on the table at the Iroquois and Willowdale contribute to the perilousness of the margin. Frustrating and concerning. But I guess it evens out when you look at Vintage Year winning two maiden races and $36,000. As Jonathan Sheppard once said to me, “I never get too up when it’s going well or down when it’s going poorly, knowing it’s about to change.” Words to live by from a guy who lived them.
Update. It sounds like both races are going at Laurel. Whew. Phew.
