Second Half Starts With 3 Grade 1's

Steven , I haven't commented that often on here, but, I just wanted to tell you that I enjoy your blogs. I, like everyone on here, am looking forward to the Saratoga meet. You'd be surpised how many horse players in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona love Saratoga, and enjoy your Saratoga blogs. And yes, we love the racing, but for those of us in the desert, reading about the road trip, your dogs and your Saratoga food selection brings it to life. Have a great upcoming meet. I look forward to reading about your summer adventures!

pletcher only one grade 1 winner this year ? asmussen doesnt have jessie to buy him any more grade 1 victories. the whitney and woodward are both 9 furlong grade 1 races. please change the distance of one of these races. maybe they can make the woodward a fillies/mares race only. since, the girls win it all of time now. go royal delta. baffert and o'neill are both shock wave therapy users. both are leaders on grade 1 races. where can i find a list of horses who use shock wave therapy ?

John Velazquez should have 3 G1 wins, unless you're giving the Met Mile to Caleb's Posse instead. In that case, Rajiv Maragh should have 4 wins. -------- Fixed it, thanks. -SC

are you playing the pick-6 thursday at Belmont?

Steve, Great to see the blog make a pre Saratoga appearance. A heads up to all of the northbound troops. Thruway traffic pattern between exits 23 & 24 is brutal. Construction of the southbound side has all traffic diverted to the northbound side. Northbound Friday & Saturday and Southbound Sunday is a crawl. Alternate route is exiting Thruway at 23 and taking I-787 north. Then take Alternate Route 7 west to Northway exit. This will bring you onto Northway just south twin bridges. Save trip to all!

You are such an east coast homer, wow.

Until the Suburban is run at a 11/4 it should not be a grade 1

Steve, always have liked your stuff. You and everyone else seem to accept the I'll Have Another story at face value. As a pure spectator looking at the unadulterated facts, the story seems somewhat odd. O'Neill is accused of drugging in his home track, nothing patently illegal but performance enhancing drugs nonetheless. Makes it to Belmont as a potential triple crown winner - - - fame and fortune galore! - - - but runs into a new, government run NYRA that forces a quarantine. No doubt to anybody they targeted O'Neill. The pre-Cuomo NYRA would NEVER have done that. The, the horse has an injury the day before that is impossible to detect visually and no independent source verifies, to my knowledge, the injury. The horse looked just fine at the press conference. They parade him at the Belmont (?) and they parade him at Hollywood yesterday like he's some returning war veteren. Now, he's off to Japan (????) for breeding. Why is the horse going to Japan? A bunch of us were discussing this at Belmont the other day. It is equally plausible if not more compelling to believe that either (1) O'Neill pulled the horse as the gig was up with the drugging and he couldn't afford a scandal, or (2) NYRA, the media or someone with authority told him to fein injury because the sport could not survive a major drug scandal, which could have happenned just on residuals in the horse, and the government run NYRA would not and could not be bought off. Now they're getting the horse out of the country. I know this sounds like major conspiracy theory and, believe me, I am not like that but as I said this whole I'll Have Another story is very fishy. I don't know if that horse deserves to be treated equally with the other grade one winners any more than Roger Clemins derserves to be in the baseball Hall of Fame.

Maybe if NYRA would move the Suburban back to 10 furlongs it would deserve a grade 1 status. At 9 furlongs you just can't give it grade 1 status, not with two 9 furlong grade 1s for older horses looming at Saratoga. The last thing American racing, and particularly East Coast racing, needs is another stakes for older males that has been chopped down to 9 furlongs rewarded with grade 1 status. Maybe if NYRA wants to keep the Suburban at 9 furlongs and still get a grade 1 it could extend the Woodward to 10 furlongs. That would be a nice progression of grade 1s from 8-9-9-10-10 furlongs(Met, Suburban, Whitney, Woodward, Jockey Club Gold Cup). Sadly, one of the reasons the Hollywood Gold Cup might not have drawn a better field is because it actually is run at 10 furlongs. Looking at the Suburban field, who is up to running 10 furlongs and doing so off a cross-continent ship? As a fan in SoCal, I would have loved to have seen one of the Suburban horses ship, but in the end I think their trainers were probably correct to go in the 9 furlong race rather than the one at 10. And while the Hollywood Gold Cup and Suburban each had 3 grade 1 winners, the total number of grade 1 wins in each field now stands at 7 for the Hollywood Gold Cup and just 3 for the Suburban. Game on Dude now has 3 career grade 1 wins, 2 at 10 furlongs, as does Richard's Kid. Running grade 1s at 10 furlongs? What a novelty. And there's no West Coast bias here. Steven is absolutely correct the Hopeful should be a grade 1.

Good to see you back in action Steve. Do you have any opinion about the shuffling of the Filly sprint races? Test to Travers day, Prioress to the old Test slot, and Victory Ride to Suburban co-feature. I only just noticed it as I tried to schedule some Saratoga race days.