With a career record in Stakes races which reads, eight wins, six second places and two third places and only one finish outside the top three, it is easy to see why Midday, trained by Sir Henry Cecil in the UK is the favourite to claim a second win in the Breeders Cup Fillies & Mares Turf later this year.

The incredible five year old mare has ran with huge distinction throughout her racing career and the only item missing from her racing CV is that she failed to take a Classic race as a three year old. Although not deemed ready for the 1000 Guineas two years ago, she did try her luck in both the English and Irish Oaks, but finished second in the English version and third at the Curragh in races won by the fabulous Sariska.

Notwithstanding, Midday showed plenty of courage when returning from the Curragh after the Irish Oaks to win the Group One Nassau Stakes at Goodwood, a race she was to go on and win twice more, in 2010 and 2011 to complete the hat-trick. A month before heading off to Santa Anita for her first Breeders Cup appearance, she ran third when going off as the 11/4 favourite, in the Group One Prix l’Opera at Longchamp on ‘Arc’ day behind outsider Shalanaya in what transpired to be one of worst career performances.

That run however was soon forgotten a month later after she went flying past the post to claim the Breeders Cup Filly & Mares Turf and the million dollars first prize. In that race she beat the cream of America’s female talent, including the previous year’s winner, Forever Together. It was the perfect end to a very exciting three year old season and the decision was taken to keep her in training.

In her first run as a four year old she came up against her old adversary, Sariska, and once again had to settle for second place behind her in the Group Two Middleton Stakes at York. She then went on a three race winning streak, all at Group One level, taking her second Nassau Stakes, the Yorkshire Oaks and the Prix Vermeile at Longchamp. Back to the Breeders Cup, this time at Churchill Downs, she had to settle for second place, beaten just half a length by Shared Account.

The plan for 2011 has always been to take her back to America for a final bid at the Breeders Cup in the Filly & Mares Turf and she has shown for the most part of the season that she has lost none of her speed and ability. She has had five runs so far, winning the Middleton Stakes and a third ‘Nassau’ as well as finishing second in the Group One Coronation Cup at Epsom behind St Nicholas Abbey, She was second behind Misty For Me in the Group One Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh in June and was second again behind stablemate, Twice Over in the Group One Juddmonte International Stakes at York last month.

It is thought that she will have one more run in the UK, probably on Champions Day at Ascot on 15th October in either the British Champion Fillies & Mares race or the Champion Stakes. Following that run she will be sent across the Atlantic to finish her racing career with the aim of winning the Breeders Cup Filly & Mares Turf for a second time and as it stands, she looks to be one of the more confident European selections that will be headed to Churchill Downs on Saturday 5th November. Perhaps the American readers could suggest some Stateside rivals that could lay down the biggest challenge?

Update 3: Prices posted to hips I was watching.

Update 2: 3/4 to Zenyatta (and out of a G1 Stakes Winning mare) did not sell sold at a final bid of $750,000.  Remarkable. (HRTV was wrong with their initial info)

UPDATE: So far the sale topper is 1.4 million. Three foals have sold for over one mil: 1 AP Indy, 1 Street Cry, and 1 Unbridled's song. More to come. BIds and averages are up so far over last year. But there' still lots to go.

The Keeneland September Yearling Sale begins next week. I think that more than any other off-track event it is a determinant and a measure of the strength of the thoroughbred industry. You can see new money, big new players, hot bloodlines, cooling bloodlines, and sheikhs throwing money around like they own oil fields or something. When the average is up, it's a good thing. When the highest bids are up, it's a great thing. I've perused the first 3 books (there are a total of seven) and have pulled out a few interesting cases.

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One of the best ways for smaller breeders/owners to get a stallion that has a great record on the track, great bloodlines, and is estimated to be capable of being a good sire is to take advantage of them early. That's why the Freshman Sire Ranking is actually crucially important. We know so many of the sires out there due to their fabulous successes of their progeny on the track. But how do you evaluate them? How do you know what their progeny will do? Well, I don't know, but I know who to ask.

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Matt: I bumped this up over to the front page as it's good stuff from TFTribe once again. 

Since Matt brought it up in his comments about the King's Bishop Stakes, and I read this about Acclimation's victory in the Pacific Classic, "Acclamation completed 1 1/4 miles on Polytrack in 2:00.61, a track record in the five seasons this track has had the synthetic surface. The only 1 1/4-mile main track race run at Del Mar each summer is the Pacific Classic," I figured I'd take a quick look at what a day of racing is composed of, distance-wise. I took a quick look at September 2nd and found that basically, the larger circuit tracks (Arlington, Del Mar, Ellis, Calder) average about 2 races per card of over a mile. Meanwhile, smaller tracks (Canterbury, Charlestown, etc) are around 1(-) per day. Now I didn't go all the way through every entry card on the 2nd (I do have a job) but when you figure that there will be around 10 races per day, you're looking at 10-15% of total races are at 9+ furlongs.

Obviously major stakes meets (Derby, Travers, etc) are going to emphasize the classic distances and will throw off the numbers. But when you consider that less than 5% of horses (probably really more like 1%) are going to be even remotely competitive with high level stakes horses, the number of Graded Stakes of 9+ furlongs can really be thrown away when considering your regular-type racing.

Smart people know that when you breed to anything you're just rolling the dice. Assuming there is some level of standard deviation of the results of a genetic match, you will want to center the capabilities of your horses at around a mile (well that is my theory). That way you're looking to either miss short of a mile (6-7f) and be centered around the majority of the racing in North America. Or you miss long, and you're at 8-10f and can still find a place to run. And if you're longer than that, you're probably just slow.

The big discussion around Derby time was that there are so few breeders that are shooting for Classic distances anymore. Why would you when 70%ish of non-stakes money is at a mile or shorter? Hell, the Rachel Alexandra-Curlin foal might run in 10k claimers, who knows. So when it's a total crapshoot anyway, you should play it safe. If you miss on a horse you're Breeding for the Belmont, then you end up with a horse that needs to be Western-broke as a pleasure horse.

As I was reviewing charts from yesterday's racing action, I noticed that the Emerald Downs $0.50 Pick 5 paid a hefty $14,067.55. The Pick 5 had a total pool of $16,704 which included a one-day carryover from Friday of $4,646, as well as $12,098 of new money. Essentially, a single ticket down the entire pool.  Let's look at the prices of the winner, field sizes, and favorites.

In 1st, 2nd, and 5th legs we saw the defeat of a 8/5, 9/5 and 6/5 favorites, while the 3rd and 4th legs saw the favorites win.  The 2nd and 5th legs were won by relatively modest horses at 5/1 and 9/2.  So we are left with a Pick 5 that paid out the entire poos to one winner on (primarily) the strength of the 10/1 winner in the first leg. 

Two points seem to be apparent, both in respect to this specific sequence, and in terms of overall Pick # strategies:

• The first leg saw many players either single the favorite, or spread to just the top three horses (the next two betting interests went off at 5/2 and 7/2), leaving the other numbers with few takers.
• While many players will spread/single only when the situation calls for it, a lot of people like to either single in the first leg (giving them more options later in the sequence if they can get through), or spread out in order to "stay alive" to the next race. I almost think this was a situation where there was a large contingent of Pick 5 players that did both of those things.  One group singled the favorite, who took them out when he could only muster a 2nd place finish.  The other group saw the race as between the three top betting interests and didn't feel it was worth it to spread out (the 10/1 winner was the fourth choice on the odds board).

To further re-enforce that this Pick 5 paid way better than we would expect given the prices, the parlay comes out to relatively modest (by comparison) $4,741.66.

Was wondering if anyone plays in tournaments to win prizes or qualify for NHC. I've started this year for the first time and I wondered if anyone has strategies or advice. I signed up for NHC tour and have played in a couple w/o much success. My rationale going in was to try to pick every winner regardless of price, but have heard that might not be the best strategy. Just wondering how others approach it. Thanks.

Of all the stallions currently standing, one really stands apart: Dynaformer, a son of Roberto out of a His Majesty mare. While he put up a solid stakes winning career by winning the GII Jersey Derby, the GII Discovery Handicap, and the ungraded Lucky Draw Stakes. His career winnings totaled over $670,000. But his progeny's earnings dwarf that number, coming in at near 100 million dollars worldwide.

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So this is pretty theoretical and technical stuff but is something that has intrigued me for quite some time now. When you are looking to breed a mare you almost always do what is called an ENick to figure out what the theoretical cross is rated as. I did Rachel Alexandra and Any Given Saturday just as an example. It spits out this:

Roman Dosage Profile: (2-3-6-1-0) (distance from Sprint-Classic-Marathon, basically)
Dosage Points: 12
D.I.: 2.00 C.D.: 0.50
Werk Quality Rating: Q 5
Quality Points: 10 Total Points: 22

So what the hell does this all mean? There is a great explanation of all of it here. I don't really want to get into all of it but basically most of these numbers are just based on the occurrences of the chefs-du-race, or the chiefs of the breed (you can see who they are at the bottom of the link). But what about all of the other blood in the pedigree? (And really, who cares about these numbers, you don't get more money at the sale solely because of them).

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Great article today over at Thoroughbred Times on the inefficiencies of OTB/online wagering. It's here.


This falls right in line with what we were discussing concerning confusing standards between states and such. Del Mar just closed their independent online betting site and I'm sure plenty of places would love to do the same. The overhead for developing, maintaining, and operating your own online betting site for each track/company must be really extensive. Let the big corporations like Churchill Down Inc. run TwinSpires.com, they can foot the bill. Smaller operators can pay the fees to be part of the site(s) but still bring in their fair share of the handle.

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(Matt: TFTribe has recently written some great FanPosts looking at the breeding side of the game. Here's a nice look at English Channel, a personal nemesis of mine a few years ago.)

With English Channel's first winner this week, I figured I'd take a closer look at him. A winner of  5.2 million dollars and a Breeder's Cup Turf Champion, he clearly has an elite record. The most interesting thing is that he ran every single race at a mile or more and even broke his maiden as a two year old at a mile and a sixteenth. Usually you see juveniles breaking their maiden at 5-7f as their initial stamina just isn't quite there yet.

More ATJ.

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