Warning: long post. If you have only a few seconds to dedicate to this subject, go straight to *Great Notion Gelding Now Two-For-Two at Santa Anita* and read that.
OK, immediately below, an article writeen just after Bacharach's 2-year old colt Details R Sketchy won his debut race.
After that, you'll read report showing what happened after a subsequent race, mentioned in the initial article, actually took place.)
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Playing it cautiously with Details R Sketchy
http://toc.calracing.com/drf_news.php?f=98450
By Brad Free
ARCADIA, Calif. - Flashy debut winner Details R Sketchy is perfectly qualified to run in either Grade 1 for 2-year-olds this fall during the Oak Tree meet at Santa Anita. But for now, trainer Carla Gaines and owners Burt and Jane Bacharach will take the low road.
Details R Sketchy won a Del Mar maiden sprint Aug. 31 by nearly four lengths, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 91, six points higher than Midshipman earned winning the Del Mar Futurity. The two will meet when Gaines believes Details R Sketchy is ready for the deep end.
"Sure, I'd like to go in the Norfolk and the Breeders' Cup, but I'll take a back seat for now," Gaines said. "We opted to develop him, and try to not get too excited."
It will be hard not to if Details R Sketchy wins his second start Thursday at Santa Anita in a first-level allowance and optional claimer at six furlongs. He figures to start as the odds-on favorite in race 2, facing seven rivals.
"Those are odds I like," Gaines said. "But you have to maintain your sanity and realize that you have only had one 5 1/2-furlong race." And if he wins Tuesday? "Then I'll look at stakes," Gaines said.
Details R Sketchy is by first-crop sire Great Notion, and the first foal out of a dam who went 0 for 4 racing.
"He's a plain, little brown horse with somewhat obscure breeding, but from the day he came into the barn, he impressed us," Gaines said.
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[Rio: Note that there was nothing obscure about Afternoon Deelites (DRS's dam's sire), a great horse owned by Burt. I bet YouTube can help you realize that. He won his first five starts, if I'm not mistaken. Had he not lost a very close race, the Santa Anita Derby, just prior to the Kentucky Derby, he would have been the likely favorite to wear the roses. If I recall it correctly ‘Afternoon' suffered an injury at 3 and struggled to come back at 4, what he did very sucessfully against tough competition (results in parenthesis, see below, indicate the races were stakes, so that, for instance, the 3(2) you read there means he won 3 races, of which 2 were stakes, i.e., races in which he faced tougher competion). I actually saw him come in second at the Met Mile in NY. It was a handicap and his defeat had everything to do with him having been assigened the top weight, and the eventual winner, possibly the bottom weight. I think it was like 130 (or more) to 118 lbs. (or less).
From http://www.louisianabred.com/register/p ... elites.pdf:
RACE AND (STAKES) RECORD
Age Starts 1st 2nd 3rd Earnings
2 3 3(2) 0 0 $351,200
3 5 3(3) 1(1) 0 416,925
4 4 1(1) 2(2) 0 293,068
12 7(6) 3(3) 0 $1,061,193
At 2, WON Hollywood Futurity-G1 at Hollywood Park (1
1/16 mi.), Hollywood Prevue Breeders’ Cup S.-G3
at Hollywood Park (7 fur.), a maiden special weight race
at Santa Anita Park (6 fur.).
At 3, WON Malibu S.-G1 at Santa Anita Park (7 fur.), San
Felipe S.-G2 at Santa Anita Park (1 1/16 mi.), San
Vicente Breeders’ Cup S.-G3 at Santa Anita Park (7
fur.), 2nd Santa Anita Derby-G1 at Santa Anita Park
(1 1/8 mi.).
At 4, WON Commonwealth Breeders’ Cup S.-G2 at
Keeneland (7 fur.), 2nd Strub S.-G1 at Santa Anita
Park (1 1/4 mi.), Metropolitan H.-G1 at Belmont Park
(1 mi.).
[Rio: The ‘Commonwealth’ win was in record stakes or track record! What a comeback!]
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Great Notion Gelding Now Two-For-Two at Santa Anita
Posted: 5:50 PM ET
[Throughbred Daily News]
2nd at OSA [6 f (AW)] Winner: Details R Sketchy by Great Notion
2nd-OSA, $48,246, Alw, Opt. Clm. ($80,000), NW1X, 2yo, 6f (AWT), 1:09 3/5, ft.
DETAILS R SKETCHY (g, 2, Great Notion--Wilya Love Me, by Afternoon Deelites) was an impressive debut winner at Del Mar Aug. 31, coming from just off the pace and running away to a 2 3/4-length victory in a 5 1/2-furlong time of 1:03 3/5. [Rio: That day he raced against 10 other yet unraced 2-year olds.] [Rio: Now, on his second start...] The prohibitive 1-5 favorite bobbled at the break, but recovered to set the pace through fractions of :22.56, :45.40 and :57.08. He added to his advantage into the lane and, despite racing greenly, came home 1 1/4 lengths the best under a hand ride. Pick to Click (El Corredor) was second. Lifetime Record: 2-2-0-0, $58,200.
O-Burt & Jane Bacharach. B-Blue Seas Music, Inc (MD). T-Carla Gaines.[Rio: O- Owners; B: Breeder.]
[Rio: So, with Burt and his dear ones, we have hopes and expectations to keep in check, which of course beats not having reasons for such concerns about a potential Breeder’s Cup or Kentucky Derby contender.]
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Now that we're talking about this, you may want to read what the National Thoroughbred Racing Association had to say in a short Burt bio.
http://www.ntra.com/stats_bios.aspx?id=1892
It isn't clear there what a great filly Heartlight # 1 was. She won the Eclipse Award as the best 3-y-o filly in 1983. It doesn’t get any better than being in the company of the greatest names of fillies and mares that ever raced, such as Ruffian, Winning Collors, Genuine Risk (a Kentucky Derby Winner), and Go for Wand, as an Eclipse Award winner in that category. (You know, often some of the best don't get to race at 4, and at 2 they are too young, so that many aren't pushed hard at that age.)
Sadly, Genuine Risk made the news recently. Notice the what this initial ESPN paragraph http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/ ... id=3541125 had to say about her:
LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Genuine Risk, one of only three fillies to win the Kentucky Derby and 1980's champion 3-year-old filly, has died in Virginia at age 31.
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Burt talks about the disappointments and the need to keep hopes and expectations in check. I’m know he had go through a lot with his horses. But we can stick to the ones I mentioned above as having won the most important award for a 3 y-o filly.
Go for Wand... Talk about heartbreak! Can you imagine how Burt would have felt if 'Heartlight' had remained sound longer only to die in what turned ou to be a sensational match race with another, older, great mare? 'Wand' and Bayakoa fought for the lead from the start.
Bayakoa had broken a stakes record three weeks earlier and had won that same race, the Breeder's Cup Distaff, the year before. Everybody new the 3-y-o GFW would make that edition a two-horse race. (Care to relive those terribly sad moments?
And would you believe that Ruffian's owners didn’t have it any easier? She was 10 for 10 (that's right!) and had easily equaled a stakes record before her last race. You can suffer reading this http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/ ... id=2892898 or watching this:
Relating Bayakoa, Ruffian, Heartlight etc: http://www.nyra.com/Belmont/Stakes/Ruffian.html (race distances not always the same).
Hopes from the horse racing world
Moderator: mark