Brooklyn Handicap Winner Rising Moon

Will Dutrow wheel Rising Moon back in 7 days? If he does bring him back he is a very likely winner in the Brooklyn. Rising Moon won for fun yesterday.

With the combination of 2nd off layoff form and proven twelve furlong ability he has every right to win with ease in the Brooklyn. He is a more likely winner than his more famous stablemate the next day. The barn was down on this horse as he opened up at 2-5 yesterday. The owner flew in from some foreign country and was on-hand in the paddock. Judging by the opening price it looks like the groom, Dutrow and the owner cashed some big win tickets. The horse was dappled, calm cool and collected through the whole process. Even the gallop out was strong.

Play Of The Day 31MAY

Belmont Race 9 Sands Point GII 1 1/8 inner turf

I found a nice lone speed wire2wire candidate at Belmont today at a inviting morning line price. #6 Raw Silk is the clear lone speed and should be clear and loose on the lead in this 9 furlong test. This filly crossed the line first in both of her two turn tests, today she switches back to two turns after she set a hot pace last out. Not only is the 9 furlong distance over the Belmont inner is very kind to speed, but she should get a breather all the way to the far turn. Top this off with the short field and a wire2wire score is on tap at a healthy price. She may be overlooked here, but I will be focusing on her.


23 3-3-1
strike rate 13%
cumulative return $37
ROI $1.61

Casino Drive Spied In The Paddock On Thursday

Casino Drive was schooling in the paddock at Belmont on Thursday. From my computer I was able to view the live feed from Belmont Park. He looked absolutely tremendous as he was walked around the paddock. Arched neck, shiny chestnut coat, mane flowing/whipping around in the wind and he was strutting his stuff like the alpha horse in the paddock. He looked like one bad colt to be reckoned with, he took one look at one of the claimers in the paddock and started whipping his tail around in disdain. . The only knock I could have on his appearance as maybe he was a little too fresh, he was whipping his tail, bossing around the two handlers and generally just doing as he pleased. How could anyone with a pulse not be looking forward to the showdown next week with Big Brown? It is clear that this showdown will start in the paddock, with Big Brown and Casino Drive both vying for alpha horse control.

Dutrow & IEAH Getting Thrown Under The Bus

Rick Dutrow is the kind of guy that reporters dream about. He is animated, honest, candid and has a colorful past. This is a guy that could fill a newspaper page everyday. He could sell papers like hotcakes and captivate the public's imagination with his polarizing comments. Yet the press is not satisfied with just reporting on him and his barn. They have to forage for dirt. They could write a story about how he brought his horse Rising Moon off a year layoff for a rousing win but they do not. They could write a story about how he has claimed horses with his own money and retired him to the farm, but they do not. They could write about his tremendous horsemanship skills, gleaned over a lifetime of working with horses. Instead they choose to rehash sensational, painful stories about the horrific murder of his girlfriend. Over and over we hear about his 70 odd infractions of the last 30 years. This is his time and he the man of the moment, who are these people trying to take his moment? Some say Dutrow is classless or crude. Isn't trying to bring him down at a time when he is completely validating his horseman skills classless?


Dutrow may be a bit of a sneak but being a bit sneaky is not only part of the trainers job description it is a very desirable trait. The trainer from Seabiscuit was certainly sneaky, working his horse out in darkness to avoid scrutiny. This may have been an endearing trait for Tom Smith, but it not endearing for Dutrow, as he is labeled a cheat. Horse trainers should not be confused with high school guidance counselors or mistaken for the eastern region director of process improvement or some other position where you have to dress up, stifle your personality and shut up. A stable operates in secrecy especially a claiming stable where the bottom line is affected by the looseness of lips and conversely the braggadocio that helps scare away competition. It is Dutrows job to give his horse every edge he can muster. Sometimes brash comments may discourage a contender from entering a race, sometimes it may get a tired horse claimed. Dutrow is master of all things braggadocio and it seems to either endear him to people or completely turn them off. One thing for sure almost everyone has an opinion.

Dutrow owns a trifecta of headline grabbing personality traits. The guy has brass balls, panache and a transparent personality. In a world where everyone says the same thing while saying nothing, Dutrow says everything and anything that comes to his mind. He can be funny, bold , rude and animated. He is the kind of person that makes the headlines that racing needs to stay in the limelight. Dutrow's personality trifecta is in short supply in racing, where many can be a complete bore. (2007 eclipse awards show expect for the steeplechase owner) Does Dutrow's candor make a classless person? Since when does boring equal class? Does Dutrow's personality make him classless? Or is it that everyone else has a sensitivity problem and can not take hearing the truth? Is the entire world at a dinner party with the Queen Mother at all times where the strictest of manners and protocol applies. There is a time for polite conversation and a time for discretion. However there is also a time for brash, bold comments and the racetrack is the perfect place for the comments that Dutrow makes. He is a breath of fresh air in this new backstretch world of political correctness and bland, vapid personalties. He injects personality and a bit of controversy where there was nothing.



Dutrow is a throwback to the game of old, a direct link to every trainer that had to scratch and scrap to keep horse going to keep the food on the table. He is his fathers son who was a master trainer in his own right. Now that old line of claiming trainers is back on top. Every comment from Dutrow is played like a poker hand, every move designed to bluff, to intimidate or draw in his competition for the kill. There was a time before Go Baby Go when the racetrack was a unapologetically a big boys place and a bad boys place. Sure there were upper class people at the track, but there were also gamblers, drunks, bookies and loansharks. Dutrow would have done just fine at the racetrack of old. Now his brash confident comments rub people the wrong way. They are not used to Dutrow's raw, unbridled confidence and demand the homogenized trainer speak they are used to which is somehow mistaken for class nowadays. His comments polarize the public and those that do not like him must not only hear what he has to say but they feel compelled to comment on what he has to say. Bashing Dutrow is a common occurance, it is almost as saying something bad about Dutrow and his past somehow makes you a better person, he is almost universally disparaged. If these people looked closer at Dutrow, and considered the historical context of the racetrack, I believe they will realize their folly.


Iavarone

Another guy taking a beating in the press is IEAH chief Iavarone. This guy went from pushing penny stocks on the Island to the top of the racing world. Learning about Iavarone's background makes the IEAH accomplishments all the more impressive as he is clearly operating on pure talent and panache. He picked Big Brown out of a maiden turf race and outbid the sheik and everyone else that wanted him. It was Iavarone that saw Big Browns brilliance in a turf maiden and it was Iavarone who had the stones to bet big on him off that turf win.

Iavarone is certainly no blueblood, but he is not street trash either. Street trash does not slap together the most successful stable in the country in just a few years. Not only is his stable a classic race winner, they are Breeders Cup winners and Dubai World Cup card winners too. He certainly had to fight, struggle, plan, take risks and persevere to get where he is today. Having the sand to take those risks have paid off in the biggest of ways. Rather than give credit to where credit is due, most are foraging like roaches looking for crap to rehash from 1992, looking to cut the man down with his past rather than acknowledge the present. Then there is so much thinly veiled innuendo about the guy from the public and the press who has watched one too many Godfather and Sopranos episodes. What is the biases for this innuendo? Is it simply the vowel on the end of his name? What this guy has accomplished in this game is extraordinary, but few realize it.

Anyone that has read about about some of the famous familys like the Kennedys, Bushes or house De Rothchild knows those at the top always have a few skeletons in the closet. The Kennedys started out as bootleggers and Bushes/Rothchilds have been war brokers for generations, all those with success are doers and doers do lots of things good and bad. Is a SEC violation from the early 90's and bad check really that horrible a transgression? Certainly the UCLA deception is embarrassing but Iavarone came clean about that. What we can all agree upon is that he has made a huge impact on racing. Unfortunately with that success comes the envy and the haters who always push their way to the front with attempts to defame and marginalize. Fortunately history is written by the victors and history will be written next Saturday.

Commentator In The Met Mile

Commentator was a sight to behold in the paddock at the 2008 Met Mile. The gelding got a A+ in the looks department and a A+ in the "looking ready to run" evaluation. Even though Commentator is a chestnut his coat was dappled like the way a gray horse gets dappled, I had not seen such a healthy looking coat on a chestnut like that before. Commentator looked like he was at peak fitness and health. There there was the prancing and dancing, Commentator was on his toes in the paddock and prancing like the alpha horse. He looked ready and anxious to run, without the sweat and fractious behavior of a horse that is too fresh. He looked like a winner in the paddock.

Commentator ran a great race on a suicidal pace. First Defense was all out pressing the pace and gave Commentator all he could handle on the lead. Commentator's bravest moment in the eight furlong test was when he lost the lead mid-stretch and looked to be out of contention. However with a surge of equine competitiveness he gamely regained the lead. Valor is admired and cherished but it does not guarantee a trip to the winners circle. It would not be Commentator's day as he was overhauled near the wire by the late closing winner Divine Park. Take nothing away from Divine Park but Commentator ran a very brave and inspiring race. Sometimes bravery is not rewarded in battle and Commentator was very brave in defeat.

Play of the Day 25MAY

Belmont Race 2
Judging by his success yesterday I am going to take a shot with #1 Volmoose in race #2 for trainer David Prine. There is not a horse on the backstretch that eats better.

Race 2 Win #1 Volmoose

Belmont Race 9

Time for a first and launch dual plays of the day. #4 Any Limit just raced a few days ago and had a bullet work on Friday. This is the Jerkens crackdown work that signals readiness in his steeds. Any Limit is second off the layoff and turf to dirt.

Race 9 Win #4 Any Limit

21 3-3-1
strike rate 14%
cumulative return $37.00
ROI $1.76

Story Behind The $146 Winner At Belmont On Saturday

Who is David Prine and how did he just put over a $146 winner? Very rarely do we see prices like that in New York. Looking closer at the connections it turns out that the trainer and his story is much more special than just a $146 winner. Not only was this the trainer's first winner it was his first winner. Halation brought elation to someone that could use a break in life.

NYRA has a nice piece about him on their page
from NYRA

For David Prine, just being alive was something of a longshot. Nearly killed in a gas explosion in a Louisville, Ky. kitchen in 1999, paralyzed on one side and unable to speak, Prine endured years of physical therapy, cognitive rehabilitation, and several surgeries as he slowly learned how to walk again, and talk again. The only life he knew – that of being a chef – was gone, replaced by a legacy of suffering, trauma, and pain.

Somehow, the long and tortuous road to recovery led him to the racetrack, where he toiled as a hotwalker, blacksmith helper, and groom. But on Saturday, Prine found himself someplace he’d only dreamt about – in the winner’s circle at Belmont Park, having saddled his first winner as a trainer with his very first starter, a 4-year-old New York-bred maiden named Halation, who returned $146.

“Unbelievable,” Prine kept repeating. “It’s unbelievable.”

Three years after the accident, perhaps stirred by the memory of having worked as a hotwalker while in high school and wanting to reconnect with horses, Prine enrolled in Ted Landers’ course at Belmont Park on the principles of caring for thoroughbreds. He attached himself to a couple of blacksmiths. He procured a job working for trainer Steve Jerkens and also assisted Landers, himself a groom turned trainer. Along the way, Prine attracted the attention of Lois Engel, who in 2003 had purchased a farm in upstate New York with the intention of breeding and racing Thoroughbreds.

“I met him about 18 months ago, when he was helping out Ted,” said Engel. “Spending time at the barn and watching him, you could see he had this sixth sense for dealing with horses. I would ask him what he wanted to do, and he’d say, “Someday, I’d really like to train horses.’”

By December, 2007, Landers was ready for a break. And Engel knew exactly who she wanted to take over training her horses.

“We wanted to give David the opportunity,” she said. “This is what he was meant to do.”

With her support and that of several trainers, Prine began studying for the state exam to get his trainer’s license. It wasn’t easy. Although he knew about horses, because of his brain injury, reading and writing remained a challenge. But with the same perseverance he demonstrated in coming back from his devastating injuries, Prine was able to master the requirements and pass the test with flying colors.

Three weeks ago, he received his official license. And in Saturday’s fifth race, Halation came roaring from off the pace under Jean-Luc Samyn to win a seven-furlong turf event for New York-bred maidens.

“It’s amazing,” said Prine, who Sunday will send out Volmoose, another New York-bred maiden. “When I was in high school, I thought about veterinary medicine, but I always had a flair for cooking, so I went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, and became a chef. I worked at Tavern on the Green, the National Tennis Center, other places.

“Then, after the accident, I didn’t know if I would ever have another chance. I’d always had a rapport with animals, so it seemed natural to work with horses.”

These days, Prine, who lives pretty much on Social Security, takes the Access-A-Ride from his apartment in nearby Glendale to Belmont Park, where he spends most of his time in the back of Joe Lostritto’s barn at Belmont Park. Stabled there are three of Engel’s horses, including Halation and a filly named Mercy’s Image that he spoils rotten. Drawing on his background in the culinary arts and his own ideas about nutrition, the horses are fed three times daily – at 3:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. – and routinely feast on Prine’s special blend of hay.

“There’s alfalfa in there, and timothy – it’s kind of like a mesclun salad, and they love it,” said Prine, who, chef-like, refused to divulge the exact recipe. “They’re pretty happy horses.”

Prine hasn’t given up cooking for people, either. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he spent a month in the galley of the “Spirit of New York,” where he joined with other chefs and prepared food for the recovery workers at Ground Zero. On the backstretch, he cooks for the Anna House annual Christmas party and volunteers his services to other backstretch organizations as well.

In all, says Prine, it’s been an amazing journey.

“I’ve had a lot of setbacks,” he said. “So to be where I am is pretty amazing.”

In the winner’s circle.

Play Of The Day 24MAY

Belmont Park Race 10

Chad Brown the former Frankel assistant ships in #6 Victory sign who has a huge class edge on this field. Get down on this trainer before the secret gets out. This is Chad Browns first start in New York, this trainer is bred very well and this horse looks well meant first time New York second off the layoff.

Win #6

21 3-3-1
strike rate 14%
cumulative return $37.00
ROI $1.76