Ahira's Hangar

Well, the best colt is out of the derby as of yesterday with an injury - and he looked like he might have been the colt we have been waiting for since the glory days of the seventies...it wasn't just the fact that he had won all of his races as a three year old - it was the way he did it - pulling away from the others under a hand ride with such ease it was as if he was just out for a canter in a paddock, already in a gear none of the others could reach and obviously having a few gears left - dominating good fields of graded stakes winners as if they were the cheapest of claimers - and bred to run all day, with Seattle Slew as a grandfather and Alydar as a great grandfather on his mom's side of the family, with Secretariat among other standouts on his dad's. He was the best threat to win a Triple Crown since the 70's.

With the Derby less than a week away, I mourn what might have been.

Get better soon Eskendereya! Horse racing needs a super star like you can be!

The most highly rated colts - and one outstanding filly - left in the Derby field:

Kentucky Oaks day for the fillies - the heavy favorite, Blind Luck came from last to first to win the lilies by a nostril in a really exciting race:


It was hot, sunny, and windy for the Oaks.

Tomorrow's Kentucky Derby has heavy rains and thunderstorms in the forecast. They are expecting such bad weather that they are speaking of turning on the stadium lights for the first time in Derby History.

The two early favorites (after the withdrawal Eskendereya) of Lookin at Lucky and Sidney's Candy drew the two worst post positions - the inside one post and the outside twenty post. In addition, since both are California based and are used to running primarily on artificial surfaces in good weather, both are now a bit suspect because of the weather forecast.

The crowd on Oaks day made a colt named Super Saver the favorite for tomorrow over Lookin at Lucky. Super Saver has won on a sloppy nasty dirt track before...and according to the pedigree analysis, if the track is truly horrible a colt named Stately Victor has the breeding to be a potential superior mudder and he might do well.

Super Saver did it!

Yes he did! The Oaks crowd new what they were doing when they made him a favorite for the race!

Worst weather and track for a Kentucky derby since 1918!~

On to Baltimore for the Black Eyed Susans and the Preakness!

Super Saver might have his hooves full with a half brother (same sire, the deceased Mariah's Mon) named Exhi, who ran really well in his last race (the Lexington Stakes) and also a rapidly improving colt named Hurricane Ike who won the Derby Trial.

Potential Preakness starters.

The colt many people thought might be our first Triple crown winner since Affirmed has had to be retired.




A breeding interest in the colt has been purchased by the guy who owns some very top flight mares and fillies (including last year's regal Preakness winner), so maybe we can someday see some of his babies on the Triple Crown trail.

but still...what might have been...

the 2010 Fountain of Youth

the 2010 Wood Memorial

Preakness weekend.

The the Black Eyed Susan race for fillies was run on Friday. It was won by a long shot named Acting Happy and was marred by two riders being thrown from their fillies (no serious injuries reported to either horses or humans).


Preakness today, won by California based stand out colt Lookin at Lucky. This colt has been anything but lucky in four of his last five starts. He got really bad trips in the Breeders Cup Juvenile (where he still got up to second), the Rebel Stakes (where he still somehow managed to win), the Santa Anita Derby, and the Kentucky Derby. Personally I would have fired his jockey at least two races ago, and the jockey was finally fired this week, and replaced by the colt's regular morning exercise rider. The move paid off, with the colt finally getting a clean and good trip.

Derby winner Super Saver faded badly. Poor fellow was probably just too tired after his big run in the Derby on what my kids described as a muddy creek bed of a track.

Well, both the Derby winner and Preakness will be sitting out the Belmont, both getting some well earned rest.

Looks like the favorite will probably by the Florida Derby winner and Kentucky Derby runner up - a colt with the very weird name of Ice Box.

Less than a week to the Belmont, and not a single colt or filly will have run in all three races.

Why are today's race horses so freaking wimpy compared to the past? is it drugs? I can remember going to the track twenty or so years ago - the Detroit Race Course which featured really cheap claimers - and perhaps a horse or two a race was on lasix - now it seems like they all run on it at every track and every level. Even the great and undefeated mare Zenyatta runs on lasix. Is it the breeders, who seem to be more interested in breeding pretty ponies for the sales than they are in breeding durable and tough champions for the track (Triple Crown winner Assault had a deformed foot, and the immortal Man o' War was no beautiful show horse, either)? Is it the huge influx of quarter horse trainers like Lukas and Baffert and all of the trainers they have in turned trained, who simply might not know how to train a distance horse into peak fitness and performance? Is it all of the freaking inbreeding to Northern Dancer???

Got the racing channel on Directv for a week as a promotion. Got to watch the Japanese Oaks for three year old fillies. They had a full field in May for a mile and a half race. Doubt you could fill such a race in the US at that length for fillies in May, no matter how huge the purse.

And yet the Japanese use a lot of American blood lines in their breeding programs.

But they do not use the medications (unless a horse is sick, and they do not race them if they are sick). And I doubt they have the heavy quarter horse training influence.

A filly named Champagne d'Oro (yes, yet another daughter of Medaglia d'Oro) won the Acorn, the filly race that pairs with the Belmont, on Saturday. Man, that young stallion has sired a bunch of good youngsters! How many graded stakes winners now with only two crops of foals racing? And all but two (one American colt and one French colt) of his Grade I winners are fillies!

The Belmont was won by a colt named Drosselmeyer, a half brother (through their father, Distorted Humor) to Funny Cide.

They changed the pre-race song for the Belmont again. Used to be Sidewalks of New York. Then they changed it to New York, New York. Now they changed it to some rap song, with altered cleaned up lyrics. If they were going to use a rap song, why sing it and clean it up>? Song stunk, by the way!