ELMONT, N.Y. - Joe Allen has raced some fine fillies over the years. There was Sharp Dance, a Beldame winner; Andover Way, who won the Top Flight; Feel the Beat, winner of the Ballerina; Just a Game, heroine of the Flower Bowl Handicap; Glitter Woman, who captured the Ashland Stakes, and others.
But he may be showing us one of his best on Saturday when Roar Emotion runs in the $300,000 Mother Goose, a nine-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - So far, the perceived rivalry between Dublino and Megahertz has a distinctly one-sided aroma. Even Alydar finished in front of Affirmed a couple of times.
Megahertz, on the other hand, is 0 for 3 against Dublino in three high-profile encounters. Granted, she was given the win in the 2002 American Oaks when Dublino was cited for interference. And when Dublino won the subsequent Del Mar Oaks, Megahertz was only a scant nose behind. Clearly, the difference between them is slight.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The weather in California has been just awful. Awful, I say! Oh sure, we've heard about a little drizzle in the East. And apparently there has been the odd flood in the Midwest. But in California, do you know what we've been dealing with?
Clouds. Yes, clouds. And cool weather, too, with temperatures many times plummeting as low as 60 degrees.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Sightseek, so impressive in winning last weekend's Ogden Phipps Handicap on the main track, came very close to pursuing a career on the grass.
"Her pedigree is strongly oriented to grass," noted Dr. John Chandler, who heads the Juddmonte Farm operation in North America. "Sightseek was originally sent to Ireland for that reason and was at our training center there when a decision was made to bring her back in the hope that she could be an advertisement for her sire, Distant View, as being able to produce quality horses on dirt."
ELMONT, N.Y. - What does the future hold for Sightseek, an imposing five-length winner of Saturday's $300,000 Ogden Phipps Handicap for fillies and mares?
"Hopefully a Breeders' Cup engagement this fall with Azeri," trainer Bobby Frankel answered promptly. "Sightseek is a very good filly. I didn't know how she would handle the track with all the rain we've had. She had no experience with an off track, and I had some concern during the race but Jerry Bailey said she handled it well, and she was beating a strong field."
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Mike Paulson has a problem. He can't keep his hands off his horse. This would be fine if his horse was Ol' Bessie the trail nag, hitched to a post out at Turkey Neck Ranch. Give the man a curry comb and a hoofpick and let him play all day.
New York - The 64-page report issued by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer on the New York Racing Association purports to identify serious professional and ethical lapses in NYRA's management. The document and the page one reporting of it in the The New York Times on June 14 fall far short of proving that case - but say plenty about such lapses in both Spitzer's investigation and the Times's coverage.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Naming races after horses is tricky business. The most famous race named for a horse is - you guessed it - the Preakness. But how Man o' War's name became attached to a grass race is still anybody's guess, and the Forego at seven furlongs is fine, but only tells part of the tale. Despite the fact that Affirmed won major races at Belmont, Saratoga, Laurel, Santa Anita, Churchill Downs, and Pimlico, there is only one American racetrack that honors the memory of the 1978 Triple Crown winner and two-time Horse of the Year with a major race. That track is Hollywood Park.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Full of class.
Horrid weather is a factor in the limited number of fillies and mares lining up for Saturday's $300,000 Ogden Phipps Handicap. But the field is all quality, headed by such stars as Take Charge Lady, beaten just a head by Horse of the Year Azeri in the Apple Blossom; Sightseek, the Humana Distaff winner who has never finished worse than second in any race; and Smok'n Frolic, who has earned more than $1 million.