Rapid Redux Goes For 20 In A Row
by Matt Gardner on Nov 21, 2011 6:39 PM EST
in Stakes Entries, Post Positions and Odds
Email
PrintThe eighth race tonight at Mountaineer Park features what initially appears to be a ho-hum $5,000 Starter Allowance event at a mile on the main track (post time: 9:55pm Eastern). At second glance, the race is an opportunity for a five-year-old horse to set a modern-day record with his 20th straight victory. Rapid Redux, the gelded son of former Breeders' Cup Classic winner Pleasantly Perfect, is the horse that will attempt to set that record.
Rapid Redux began his 19 race win streak back on Dec. 2nd, 2010, at Penn National when he won an open company $8,000 claiming event over six rivals. He hasn't lost a race since, including an impressive 17-for-17 stretch in 2011.
That might be the most impressive aspect of the streak by Rapid Redux - the number of races he's run and won over the last year. In an age when top class horses rarely run more than six or seven times in a season, Rapid Redux has churned out almost twenty starts... and he's won them all. Sure, the gelding isn't running against top competition; the majority of his races have come under the same $5,000 stater allowance conditions that he'll face this evening. However, when we consider how difficult it is for horses to stay in top form on a week-to-week basis, along with the constant threat of injuries, illness, or a myriad of other factors that contribute to form, Rapid Redux has proven himself to be an exceptional animal.
Since his streak began over a year ago, Rapid Redux has won races at several different distances (7f, 8f, 8.5f, 9f), over different conditions (muddy/sealed, fast, good, good/sealed, and sloppy/sealed), and at multiple race tracks (Laurel, Thistledown, Penn National, Parx, Mountaineer, Charles Town, and Timonium). And while most observers wouldn't label Rapid Redux a "great" horse in terms of the stature of his wins or the enormity of his earnings (or lack thereof), he's certainly "great" at the level and against the competition that he's faced over this last year. If it was easy to spot a horse against starter allowance competition and win almost twenty races in a row, claiming trainers all over the country would be doing it. But they aren't.
Entries, post positions and morning line odds are below the jump.
| PP | Horse | Jockey | Trainer | ML |
| 1 | Disco Indy | O. Pereira | S. Davis | 12/1 |
| 2 | Lady On Fire | L. Quinones | T. Mills | 20/1 |
| 3 | Lil Skeletol | T. Houghton | B. Barnes | 30/1 |
| 4 | Copper Forest | J. Loveberry | L. Rivelli | 8/1 |
| 5 | Sunshine Kid | J. Eads | R. Patton | 30/1 |
| 6 | Sunshine Bo | A. Marin | R. Moyers | 30/1 |
| 7 | Rapid Redux | D. Parker | D. Wells | 1/9 |
| 8 | Spiritwood | L. Hernandez | P. Loescher | 30/1 |
10 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Always great to see an Iron Gelding
I just made the term Iron Gelding up, and I’m trademarking it.
But this is the same reason why I love Awesome Gem so much. He’s old, he’s not afraid to go around and run wherever (hence running in Texas, at Emerald Downs, and wherever else his connections see him fitting).
This Speaks To A Question Of Excellence...
that I have had difficulty reconciling across all sports. In much the same way that a team can win say, 30 in a row at its high-school level, only to be humiliated by average teams once forced to move up a level due to enrollment, how does one evaluate this kind of success?
We all know that if the horse shipped to Keeneland for a 32,000 Allowance his connections would be ecstatic to finish third, but they chose to keep him at his level and here he is with 20 straight wins, his name inscribed in the record books. I agree that winning that many times at any level has value, has meaning, real meaning. But his connections never moving up the ladder really bothers me somehow. It’s like admiring a 19-year old pitcher for dominating 12-year olds. The triumph is, indeed, in going out each time and winning, but were I Rapid Redux’s owner, I think I would have aimed for substantially less 5k wins in favor of finding out whether or not my horse could hang in stakes company.
Now is the time boys to make a big noise.
No matter what the people say,
For there is naught to fear, the gang's all here,
So hail West Virginia, hail.
If he's even running in a 5k claimer, he'll never run in stakes company again
I just think this is a case that this horse is clearly a low level claiming horse at this point in his career. He won solidly (winning margins anywhere from a 1/2 to about 7, with the average being around 3 1/2) in all the races. He’s running at a low level and winning.
In the three stakes races he entered, he was never a factor in any of them. So they kept dropping him in class until he won. He then stunk again for like 4 months, then he dropped to a 5k claimer and won. He’s been there ever since. This isn’t really a case of a horse not trying to move up, it’s a case of a horse not achieving at the upper levels and stepping down in class until he started winning. Lucky for the owners, he’s continued winning and winning and winning.
If you do the math, he makes more money winning lower races than he would if you doubled the pot and finished second. His last race was a total pot of 25k, winner takes 15k. You double the pot (50k) and now you’re probably talking about an allowance race at the lower level tracks that he’s running at (Thistledown, Mountaineer, Penn National, Timonium, et al). If he finishes second, his take in that allowance race is only 10k. He’s a gelding, there’s nothing to do with him after he’s done, so just run him to win. The goal is to run at the highest level possible and win. It seems to me that he’s slid all the way from stakes company to 5k claimer company in order to find that niche.
Yeah, he's definitely found the right spot
and the connections appear happy with the level he’s competing against. I think once they found the right level, it made sense to just keep him there. You accomplish two goals: 1) you’re making money, which is pretty important, and 2) the horse is performing at his best.
I think the big difference between a horse winning continuously against low-level claiming competition and other athletes dominating lower quality competition (i.e. the baseball pitcher) is the claiming aspect of the sport. You don’t run the same risk of losing your investment as you do when you drop a horse into the lowest levels of the claiming ladder.
The owner’s have been able to protect this horse in these starter allowance events; if they ever have to go back into the actual claiming ranks, I would think they’ll have to bump up his price or he’s going to get claimed pretty fast.
"A bad day at the track is better than a good day at the office."
And Down The Stretch They Come | @PressThePace
by Matt Gardner on Nov 23, 2011 12:43 PM EST up reply actions
Excellent Point
..your take on winnings is probably spot-on. And if you aren’t going to move up the ladder into stakes, there isn’t all that much difference, right?
Now is the time boys to make a big noise.
No matter what the people say,
For there is naught to fear, the gang's all here,
So hail West Virginia, hail.
Depends on where you are running
Churchill doesn’t have a huge difference between allowance and ungraded stakes. Lower circuit tracks don’t have a huge difference between high claimers and allowance races. But generally you are spot on.
by TFTribe on Nov 26, 2011 5:58 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Really?
That is good info in terms of class handicapping. I frequently find myself in a quandary about what to think of horses that are shipping in from a lesser track, say Mountaineer, with good form and speed figs, to a higher-level track for an Allowance, or non-graded….I have always assumed that the class jump is severe and I usually toss the horse, unless the BRIS class and race ratings are comparable…
Now is the time boys to make a big noise.
No matter what the people say,
For there is naught to fear, the gang's all here,
So hail West Virginia, hail.
by JP Fanshawe on Nov 28, 2011 10:04 AM EST up reply actions
Well I usually look at tracks in circuits
Northeast (NY mostly), the Churchill-Arlington-Keeneland-Oaklawn-Fairgrounds, SA-Delmar, and FL are the higher end. Moving into these “circuits” and up in class is usually really tough for all but the most talented horses. Moving into them and staying the same in class is usually tough for anyone. Graded Stakes are always good company, but Ungraded can really be hit or miss. In fact, the Jockey club is talking about revoking the stakes designation for A LOT of un-GR stakes throughout the country.
I like to use Victory Pete as an example. Good solid stakes-company horse. Just can’t get a stakes win to his name in CA. So they shipped him to Iowa to try to grab a win. Didn’t work, but it is definitely lower class there.
Look at the allowance races at the spring meet at Churchill. I think they upped the purses to like 65k at the very end of the meet. That’s more than a lot of the ungraded stakes races throughout the country. AOCs and Maiden Special Weights were really high too with the 10% bump (I think it was 10%).
Class handicapping
I deal with those same questions, JP, and sometimes the results I see are really interesting, depending on the circuit.
Out here at Emerald, the SoCal horses that come up tend to have much flashier figs and earnings, which attracts a lot of attention from the crowd, but I find that a lot don’t take to the track up here that well. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have to deal with horses coming from smaller tracks in the area (Portland Meadows, and some of the real small tracks and fair meets). The Portland horses, depending on the class, seem to hold their own, but the fair circuit shippers really struggle.
Good stuff.
"A bad day at the track is better than a good day at the office."
And Down The Stretch They Come | @PressThePace
by Matt Gardner on Nov 28, 2011 3:29 PM EST up reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on And Down The Stretch They Come
Related FanShots on And Down The Stretch They Come
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
