Clearly, we had not seen this coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Week three brought the debut of many well-meant turfers, and many many surprises along the way. There were plenty of royal bloodlines from some of the games top stallions (Frankel, Dubawi, Sea The Stars, Justify, and Wootton Bassett<\/strong> just to name a handful), not to mention foals of hall of famers and champions and G1 winners. In the end, the boys on turf proved the least predictable of the contest rounds so far!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Group A<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not knowing what was coming, this group looked wide open and sure enough there were 4 horses battling it out on the front end, separated by less than a length after a half. Sremel\u2019s GAVETHEDARKTOME (Not This Time) <\/strong>proved most stubborn of the speed, putting away the other pace factors before being overcome by the preview featured COMMANDPERFORMANCE <\/strong>(Trotter) in mid stretch. The other KY bred in the field looked home free until the very, very late surge of Desertdog\u2019s CLARK AIR FIELD, <\/strong>who got up by a quarter length to score an 83 SP in victory. The Pinatubo <\/strong>scratch bred sports a Monsun x Lyphard<\/strong> backend which should serve him well in the future. Valesa\u2019s SHMALFO (Dubawi) <\/strong>closed nicely to edge GAVETHEDARKTOME<\/strong> for third, but how can you separate the other qualifiers when the top 8 were only separated by 3 \u00bc lengths? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Group B<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This leg had the biggest contingent of Japanese sired colts in the series (4), and surprising only 2 horses bred in the neighborhood (Ireland). It turns out the home court was advantageous, as Valesa\u2019s HEXCORE(Sea The Stars)<\/strong> shot out to a contested lead with another preview featured horse, Lgbost\u2019s DUBWT I\u2019D TAPIT(Dubawi), <\/strong>flanked a half length back on his immediate inside. The vast majority of the field could make up no ground on this duo, who finished 3rd<\/sup> and 4th<\/sup> with an excellent 86 SP (would have won Group A!) A comfortable rally from midpack turned into an absolute runaway for URBAN STARZ(Gleneagles), <\/strong>the only other Irish bred colt in the field. Trainer Pointblank put together this breeding out of the Canyongait trained mare DANSILI STARS<\/strong> (Sea The Stars x Dansili)<\/strong> who is also the dam of promising 3yo stakes winner SEA KING CANDY<\/strong>(Candy Ride<\/strong>). Did I mention it was an easy win? He stopped the timer in an impressive 1:36.60, earning a whopping 93 SP in the process. Trotter\u2019s BOGIE\u2019S BLAME<\/strong>(Oscar Performance<\/strong>) was a late running 2nd<\/sup>, and also Pete\u2019s second second-place finish of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Group C<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This heat had the most \u2018capper approved entries on the day, with no overwhelming favorite or \u201cobvious\u201d horse, but the well-heeled marebred trio mentioned in the preview all went to gate around 7-1. Spinround\u2019s NAUGRIM(Frankel)<\/strong> went right to the front and opened up to daylight turning for home, extending the advantage by more than 3 lengths as Kingab\u2019s Justify<\/strong> colt DEVIL\u2019S OWN CAT <\/strong>unleashed a furious rally from 12th<\/sup>, clearly moving fastest of all and looking poised to pounce on the leader. At this point I am smugly satisfied with my observational skills, having previewed both unraced horses and now expecting them to run 1-2. Trouble is, there was another horse mid-pack who got the jump on the deep closer and poked his head in front with about 250 meters to go. And it was a horse I previewed \u2013 but not because he looked like a contender. Yeah, it was proximity bias that led me to mention KAWAMURA, <\/strong>the Kizuna x Montjeu x Kingmambo<\/strong> scratch bred I had thrown together as an 11th<\/sup> hour replacement runner… just holding off Kingab and turning in a 92 SP. Clearly, suppressing my own instincts and copying the success of other better trainers (in this case Daniel and ZUNA KVASIR<\/strong>) was the winning play. So that makes 2 scratch bred winners on the day, no favorites and no sires from the upper echelon of the BP ticker or 2yo sire stats lists, for that matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Group D<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This bunch was advertised as perhaps the toughest or deepest heat of the day, with 15 going and no obvious pitches \u2013 even the \u201cnon-yellows\u201d looked dangerous. I featured horses bred by Kizuna<\/strong> as I counted two of them and two JPN tags from the entries, and of course this before knowing the winner of the heat I just reviewed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember those observational skills I bragged about? Something went wrong when (after I had already submitted my BTB article) I opened up the race card and yes, there were 15 entrants, but 3 were JPN bred, not 2 like I had written. With some careful sleuthery and help from my Discord channel buddies, we figured out that some dumbass submitted his article a little before the race closed, and perhaps a scratch and a late entry kept the number of entrants the same, but the identities had changed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh well \u2013 I don\u2019t mention every horse in the previews anyway, so what are the odds that the late entry would be a factor? It would only be fair to take a look and recount it here, which I had committed to do on Thursday when the blunder was discovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mjbfamrs entered INSIDE LOOKIN OUT, <\/strong>a scratch bred son of Nadal<\/strong>, with the back end of Street Cry x Seattle Slew<\/strong>. At first glance, this looks more like a Kentucky Derby candidate than a 2yo turfer in Ireland, but lets see what the numbers say. Street Cry<\/strong> progeny earnings are exactly 50\/50 as a sire and 49\/51 as a damsire, with those splits being dirt vs. turf. A virtual coin flip. Factor that in with Seattle Slew<\/strong> (71% dirt sire, 64% turf DS) and this leans a little more brown. Nadal was 4 for 4 on the dirt and never tried the lawn (let\u2019s blame Baffert), but he is a son of Blame <\/strong>and from a turfy family, so maybe that will show up in SIM stats, right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Not yet! From 477 digital runners he has thrown 10 Graded Stakes winners, only 2 of which are turf horses\u2026 which jibes with his Dirt\/Turf earnings of 81\/19. Spot on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I hoped I had done my penance for the gaffe with the promise to discuss his meager entrant, despite this partially edited conversation from the chat:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donny Beisbol \u2014 9\/26\/25, 12:42 PM<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’d have run that guy on dirt, but i have seen some nice Nadal turf runners in the game lately<\/p>\n\n\n\n (smart trainer)\u2014 9\/26\/25, 12:42 PM<\/p>\n\n\n\n I like street cry<\/p>\n\n\n\n MIKE-MJBFARMS \u2014 9\/26\/25, 12:43 PM<\/p>\n\n\n\n i put it in knowing its not really a turf horse<\/p>\n\n\n\n so really it deserved to be overlooked<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donny Beisbol \u2014 9\/26\/25, 12:44 PM<\/p>\n\n\n\n haha no i just missed it. i wouldnt have written him up though<\/p>\n\n\n\n MIKE-MJBFARMS \u2014 9\/26\/25, 12:44 PM<\/p>\n\n\n\n no i know what the hell are you gonna say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donny Beisbol \u2014 9\/26\/25, 12:45 PM<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nadal has 5 G1 winners only 1 is a turf horse<\/p>\n\n\n\n