Sports news from racingfigures.com / saratoga

- Final time for the Alabama was 2:04.08, the final quarter went in a reasonable :25.09, and both Proud Spell and Music Note earned a career-top Beyer speed figure of 101 for their game efforts. But while Music Note ran essentially the same race she did winning the Coaching Club American Oaks, Proud Spell progressed considerably from her hard-fought win in the Delaware Oaks last month. No question she showed greater tractability and gutsiness, but I do wonder how much Javier Castellano taking Music Note back early and then wide around the final turn affected the finish, given the "deliberate"...

Proud Spell entering the winner's circle after the Alabama. It was something to see trainer Larry Jones, waiting for Proud Spell to gallop out, with a quiver in his jaw, blinking back tears threatening to break. Photographers pressed and congratulations flowed; he paced in the Saratoga dirt and tried to smile. He couldn't stand still, he couldn't speak, his filly had won the Alabama and done so tenaciously, digging in to get to the wire first by a head over favored Music Note. "If Eight Belles were here," said a reporter leaning against the rail, his back to the...

- Nice way to start a career: Former Dale Romans assistant Elizabeth Gray earned her first win as a trainer in race two this afternoon with 7-1 Obsequious, her second starter to date. The 2-year-old Fusaichi Pegasus filly making her debut was most admirable, snatching the lead early and dueling down the stretch with second-place finisher Abundantia. Final time for the 5 1/2 furlong MSW was 1:05.78. - Honorable Miss winner Any Limit is out of next Sunday's Ballerina, due to a flare-up of an old injury. Trainer Allen Jerkens said the mare might be start next in the Gallant...

- Bit of an omnibus post this morning as I attempt to catch up on recent Saratoga racing, to which I have been paying much attention, but about which I have written woefully little. I blame the Spa. As I was saying to someone the other day, Saratoga takes you back 100 years in more ways than one. Internet what? But where actually being at the racetrack and lacking wireless access inhibits, technology finds a way: I'm sending out Spa updates daily via Twitter. (The news that Curlin was going to the Woodward and that last Friday's card was canceled...

... of Self Appointed Fan Committee reports, now available....

Funny Cide, the most famous stable pony in racing. Mid-meet stats: Riders John Velazquez and Cornelio Velasquez are tied at 19 wins apiece, Eibar Coa follows with 14 wins. Edgar Prado has the distinction of being the rider with the most seconds, with 22 placings to 13 wins. On the trainer side, Todd Pletcher leads with 10 wins from 41 starters, Gary Contessa is second with 7 wins from 65 starters. By percentage, though, Tony Dutrow leads with his 87% ITM rate, thanks to a 16-6-3-5 record through the first three weeks, and Dave Duggan (as LATG pointed out)...

Oh, impetuous Dutrow, you trash talked the wrong guy: LEXINGTON, KY (August 13, 2008) - Jess Jackson, majority owner of Curlin, 2007 Horse of the Year, invites Big Brown to race Curlin in the Grade 1, $500,000 Woodward Stakes at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York on Saturday, August 30, 2008. Jackson has committed to donate $50,000 from the Jackson Curlin for Kids Fund to the non-profit Belmont Child Care Association, Anna House, if Big Brown, winner of the 2008 Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Haskell and Florida Derby, accepts the invitation. "Big Brown's camp recent remarks about Curlin inspired...

Ventured to the backstretch earlier than usual this morning, arriving around 5:30 a.m., between rainstorms, to watch Curlin train, only to hear that the expected move had been canceled due to the weather and sloppy track condition. "I'm not going to work him," said trainer Steve Asmussen. "It's too wet." Turns out, the exercise was merely delayed, with the big chestnut working six furlongs in 1:14.62, in company with stablemate Hawaii Calls, over the muddy Oklahoma surface after the break. Curlin's final serious Woodward work is scheduled for next Monday, over the main track. Also on the work tab was...

Above All Odds and connections await the sixth on Saturday. - Caught this intriguing tidbit in a Times Union piece on the Saturday card, otherwise known as the Going to Hell in a Handbasket Without a Graded Stakes day: The first Saturday of the meet was top heavy with stakes races.... That won't happen next year. Hayward said the Breeders' Cup people already have told him there will be no Win and You're In here. "We were told they aren't going to do any races at Saratoga or Arlington in the summer," Hayward said. That sounds like a potentially...

Training over the repaired main track on Saturday morning. The sky is blue, clouds are few, and any rain predicted is expected to pass to the north. After yesterday's early afternoon wash out, the main track is restored to normal, the turf listed as yielding. So far, the weather is perfect for an 11-race Saratoga card featuring four overnight stakes for NY-breds. Complaints about the line-up can be found here and there, but I prefer to think NYRA is doing horseplayers a courtesy, freeing fans from any distracting local graded stakes that might take away from Arlington Million day...

- A summer squall complete with thunder, lightning, and hail forced cancellation of the Saratoga card after the second race due to portions of the racetrack washing out. "There are big holes in there from the middle of the track all the way down to the rail -- I mean huge," jockey John Velazquez told DRF. (Apparently, the area of the track most affected has been trouble before: "Every time it rains hard like that, we have the same problems around the five-sixteenths pole," said Edgar Prado.) Repairs were expected to take at least an hour, and even then, "there...

- I think we all knew it was an unlikely August meeting, but a Blood-Horse report confirms. Big Brown will not race against Curlin at Saratoga: "The Woodward isn't in our thinking right now," said Pompa, a 25% owner of Big Brown. "The timing isn't right for the horse. Mike Iavarone (of co-owner IEAH Stables) and I discussed it, and we're not going to Saratoga. There is no reason to rush him back. He's coming off a tough race." The Jockey Club Gold Cup isn't in their thinking either, but Pompa did say they hoped to meet Curlin in the...

- Big Brown wins the Haskell, Brash Dutrow returns: Curlin couldn't win the Derby, we could," Dutrow said. "Curlin couldn't win this race, we could. Curlin got beat [by] a filly. We haven't. Our horse is undefeated on the grass. Curlin isn't. I don't know why people think Curlin is such a good horse. We're way better than Curlin." In his favor, Big Brown won off an eight-week layoff after the worst race of his career, digging deep to get past Coal Play -- loose on the lead from the start and running the best race of his career --...

... at Saratoga today, Spaniard makes his second start for trainer Bob Baffert. The 2-year-old Candy Ride colt, a half to certain Test Stakes favorite Indian Blessing, comes to the Spa off a sixth-place finish in a June maiden special at Hollywood that has yielded three next out winners (one at Hollywood, with a BSF of 80, two at Del Mar, with BSFs of 73 and 80), and gets leading rider John Velazquez. Sure to be sent to post at better odds, however, is Nowhere to Hide, a Vindication colt with a bullet work on July 12 debuting for trainer...

Saratoga doyenne Marylou Whitney and soap star Susan Lucci enter Congress Park in a rickshaw ... Preceded by dragon dancers ... While a golden blow-up Buddha welcomes guests to the annual Whitney Gala at the Canfield Casino ......

Reports Ed Fountaine in the New York Post this morning: Godolphin Stables is considering a run in the "Midsummer Derby" for Music Note, coming off an 11-length romp in the July 19 Coaching Club American Oaks at Belmont Park, when she ran the mile-and-a-quarter, the distance of the Travers, in a sparkling 2:01.66. Now, this is an interesting possibility. As much as I'd like to see a rematch between Music Note and Proud Spell in the historic Alabama (and agree with commenter Ed that it could well be the race that determines year-end 3YO filly honors), the Travers does have...

Prominent (2nd) gallops out after the fourth on Thursday. - Maybe it was the stifling heat and humidity that began early, but everything about Saratoga on Thursday felt slow and muted, from training hours on through the card. The eighth felt especially so, perhaps because pace for the 1 1/8 mile N1X was :47.48 and the final furlong :14.28. This was the first race of the meet run under the new bonus conditions for routes, and it drew 10 starters, swelling the purse to $100,000, but it also highlighted the problem the scheme aims to correct, with early leader...

Edgar Prado on Carriage Trail before the De La Rose Stakes. - A bad beat for Trouble Maker, on the inside and barely edged out in the De La Rose by 3-1 Carriage Trail. Her Majesty the Queen's horse, Medley, finished a length back in third. "She ran a winning race," said trainer Tom Albertrani of the mare, winless since July 2007 and sent to post at 10-1. "It's a tough photo, but that's racing." - It's not quite like the good old days when every Todd Pletcher and John Velazquez 2-year-old starter looked live, but the pair did...

- Skipped the track this afternoon to watch the races on Capital OTB while doing homework in advance of the forum on synthetic surfaces scheduled for Tuesday, which begins at 9:00 a.m. and opens with a panel featuring racetrack executives, then moves on to panels with veterinarians, trainers, riders, and researchers, wrapping up at 5:00 p.m., leaving just enough time to grab dinner downtown before heading to the Ride On! exhibit preview at the National Museum of Racing (hosted by Fran of Hoofcare). Fortunately, little was lost hearing this call on TV instead of on-track: What especially amuses me about...

Runner-up Pyro walks to the test barn after the Jim Dandy. - The dirt was harrowed before the ninth today, which seemed to make the track deeper and more tiring, a real change from the quick surface seen earlier in the afternoon, and opening up both the ungraded Henry Walton and G2 Jim Dandy to horses coming from off the pace. In the Walton, favored Mambo in Seattle wrapped up the 1 1/8 miles in 1:50.98, faster than Macho Again's final time of 1:51.16 at the same distance in the Jim Dandy. Even if the time doesn't inspire much...