In “Flatterer: The Story of a Steeplechase Champion,” author Peter Wynants asked trainer Jonathan Sheppard what set Flatterer apart as one of the greats.
“He was one of those rare horses who gave his best under any circumstance,” Sheppard said. “Although some of Flatterer’s races were more spectacular than others, he never threw in a bad race. He never said, ‘That’s enough.’ ”
If it is late April, it is the time of year when rank longshots and abject no-hopers come out of the woodwork to clutter the Kentucky Derby field with their unreasonable dreams. No need to point fingers. They know who they are. As long as there are 20 stalls available in the two starting gates at Churchill Downs on Derby Day, there will be horses involved who will be lucky to make the course, let alone have a shot at a piece of the prize.
Blame it on the Bird.
If we just looked at that race the first Saturday in May as a horse race and not the Kentucky Derby, the 2014 outcome would appear rather obvious. One horse’s last two Beyer Speed Figures are better than any figure any of the likely other 19 starters has ever had.
This, however, is not just a horse race. It is different – the field size, the preparation, the pressure, all of it. It is often about the horse that is doing best in the final days, not the horse that has performed the best in the final races.
Winning Image began her career with four blowout wins at Suffolk Downs in 2009 and 2010, sandwiched around a second in a Finger Lakes stakes race. She then lost her first five starts in the Mid-Atlantic region. Then, she started winning and winning and winning.
From November 2011 until last Saturday at Pimlico, Winning Image won nine stakes at four tracks – four at Parx, where she is stabled for trainer Mike Aro, two at Laurel Park, two at Delaware Park, and finally the $100,000 Primonetta Stakes at Pimlico a month before the Preakness.
Danny Velasquez, the trainer of the 4-year-old filly Irish Presence, asked jockey agent Craig O’Bryan how many entered the restricted Santa Lucia Stakes on Sunday at Santa Anita. O’Bryan represents Tyler Baze, who would be riding Irish Presence.
“I’ve got to tell you,” O’Bryan said, “Mandella put a tough one in there.”
Velasquez, confident that his filly was sitting on a good effort, was unfazed.
“Oh yeah? Who’s that?”
“Beholder.”
At which point Velasquez swallowed his gum.
The playoffs are also called the “second season.”
That’s done in all sports, but it’s especially appropriate in the NBA and NHL since they have played the better part of the past six months to whittle down the field to 16 teams, and those teams will compete over the next two months before crowning a champion.
On the April 10 episode of “The Colbert Report,” host Stephen Colbert shared a report of a mental-health study in which test subjects found to have depression responded favorably to the drug ketamine, which, as noted, is also used as a tranquilizer for horses. At this, the studio audience laughed.
Colbert: It does make sense that you treat depression with a horse tranquilizer because every time I see a horse, I say, “Why the long face?”
(More laughter ... Colbert, pleased with his dumb joke, gestures to a head shot of a horse over his right shoulder and grows serious.)
An expert in statistical theory and application would suggest that if something has not happened in 51 years, it is unlikely to happen in the 52nd. Such an expert also would recommend against playing cards with a guy named Ace or betting on the Vikings in the Super Bowl. Any Super Bowl.
Saturday night’s $1.5 million Charles Town Classic lost a good one when Lea was declared out last week by Bill Mott, but any race that has Game On Dude is still quite serious. The Classic was designed to bridge a stakes gap for the best older horses between the Santa Anita Handicap and the major summer handicap races.
Once the dust settles Saturday night on the last of the major Kentucky Derby trial heats – better known as the Arkansas Derby and the Blue Grass Stakes – the coast will be clear for a brief appreciation of an underserved category of Thoroughbred racehorse in Sunday’s $100,000 San Simeon Stakes at Santa Anita.
