Tizway, son of champion Tiznow ran away with what looked to be a wide open edition of the Met Mile. Usually the offspring of Tiznow improves with age, Morning Line is another example of late maturity with explosive speed in the offspring of the two time Classic winner. There were two horses that loved the big sandy strip, the winner of this race and Haynesfield; the horse for course angle was in full effect here. The time of 1:32.9 is probably a byproduct of a very fast surface though, My Golden Opinion zipped through the distance of 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:15.32 and claimers ran 1:09.66 for three quarters of a mile one race later.
The horse that most likely will improve off of this race is the second place finisher Rodman, who has come back better than ever in his three starts off the extremely long December 2009 layoff. Haynesfield threw a fit in the post parade dumping the injured Ramon Dominguez and did not run well in his second start off the layoff, not a good sign at all. Caixa Electronica continued his streak of running steady to impressive efforts with his third place effort. Any good efforts from the Arromanches progeny is good news for the racing product as it seems he has passed on his consistency and soundness to future generations.
The ghost of Arromanches returns. #6 Caixa Electronica seems to be the first horse sired by Arromanches -the gray win machine- to run in New York. The connections take a leap of faith and enter this horse in the grade II Kelso stakes. He will need to run the race of his life but crazier things have happened at Belmont. If Caixa Electronica has a a heart anywhere near the size of his daddy he should be okay. The owners of Arromanches left this comment earlier this year on a previous post.
My father and his partners own Arromanches. He is still every bit of amazing now as you remember him years ago. I just found this article and it is wonderful to see that people around the country remember him. Arromanches looks like a million dollars and has thrown some fantastic babies. I also agree that he is one of the most underrated Active Stallions. There will be several babies of his on the ground next year. If there is any interest in breeding to Arromanches next year or purchasing a baby of his you can contact me at lehman_lane@yahoo.com and I can forward the partners your information.
Yesterday's first race was named in honor of Aqueduct hero Arromanches "the horse that refuses to lose". Arromanches hasn't been seen near Aqueduct in 8 years but he is not forgotten. His regular jockey CC Lopez still has affection for Arromanches “I rode him for nearly everybody that had him – and I can’t tell you how many people had him – and he made money for all of them. I was very fortunate – he was a great horse to ride and I really loved him.”
Horses like Arromanches are the heart and soul of the game. Arromanches compiled a record of 31 wins, 15 places and 9 shows over 73 starts with earnings of $807,924. His 15 minutes of fame grew out of a 10 race win streak during 2001-2002. Like fine wine Arromanches improved as he got older; his win streak spanned his 8 and 9 year old seasons. If every thoroughbred was as honest and as durable as Arromanches the game would be much more interesting. When Arromanches went to stud he was relegated to the backwater of West Virginia. Just when slots fueled breeding activity in West Virgina picked up Arromanches was shifted to Indiana. While we can only assume that he is being personally cared for he has been all but ignored by the breeding market. Why would horse breeders not want the qualities of soundness, gameness and honesty bred into their foals? He only had 17 runners in 2009 with 12 winners-an excellent percentage- while standing for a rock-bottom fee of $750. Arromanches deserves better and the thoroughbred deserves better. Horses like this should appear more frequently in the pedigree book.
Racing has developed many of the same afflictions plaguing modern culture. There is entirely too much focus on quick thrills, fickle fashion that lacks substance while ignoring the virtues of "Arromanches" hard earned excellence. It was this instant gratification culture that doomed Arromanches to a lonely career at stud. Fashion dictates that only precocious two year old stakes winners or a flash in the pan derby trail horses are successful at stud. Horses like Arromanches that have soundness and race year after year are cast aside and removed from the gene pool. In their stead horses with known soundness issues like Unbridled's Song -think Eight Belle's, Old Fashioned, Dunkirk, Winslow Homer) propagate.
Arromanches was a true champion horse; a horse that had gameness, soundness and a heart as big as the racetrack. His mettle was not proven in one huge performance but over a body of work that spanned seven years of racing. It was nice of the NYRA to remember one of our favorites.
Very interesting article by William Nack on the overbreeding to Native Dancer and how that is causing so many breakdowns in American racehorses. They just may be on to something, so I did some work on pedigree query researching the pedigrees of every high profile breakdown victim of the last few years. Every single one of them had multiple crosses of Native dancer in their pedigree, representing massive inbreeding. It inspired me to take a closer look at pedigree and breakdowns.
On the flip side I did some research on some of our old warriors. The iron horses that have campaigned year after year, virtually injury free. Out of a selection iron horses like Evening Attire, Spooky Mulder, Naughty New Yorker, Broad Brush, Say Florida Sandy and Arromanches only Broad Brush is free of Native Dancer blood so it is very hard to even find a horse out there without the Native Dancer blood. However most of the old warriors are not inbreed to Native Dancer like the tragic breakdown victims Eight Belles,Barbaro, George Washington, Mending Fences, and Pine Island. Most of the old warriors had balanced pedigrees with sound influences like Damascus well represented in the pedigree.
On a similar note there is the offspring of Unbridled and how it relates to Eight Belles. On youtube they have the ABC pre-race coverage of the 1990 Belmont Stakes available for viewing. It it an interesting watch as you can catch a glimpse of the game before drugs like Lasix were legal everywhere. Before the Belmont Stakes the hosts of the coverage openly doubt the favorite Unbridled's ability to race in New York due to the lack of lasix in New York. At the time New York was the only triple crown jurisdiction to restrict the use of lasix. As they hit the 3/8th pole Unbridled spit the bit. Did he spit the bit because he could not race on his anti-bleeding medication? The horses effort was completely unlike his derby triumph 5 weeks earlier when he had the benefit of lasix. Unbridled is of course the Sire of Unbridleds Song who retired unsound early in his three year old season and is the sire of Eight Belles. Could this be a case of a unsound, drug addicted sire passing his unsound genetic DNA to generation after generation?
Power Cap is now a group endeavor. Joe Burns has signed on and increased the Power Cap team by 100%. He has been a racing fan since childhood and even managed to sneak some horse racing into his High School paper when he wrote there.
