Yak & Crying Out Loud Featured In Gr. 1 Tattersalls Gold
The Tattersalls Gold ********************************** There’s a pretty huge turf race in Ireland this weekend, the Grade 1 Tattersalls Gold, and it pits the #1 ranked horse in the older male long turf division and the #2 ranked horse in the older male turf classic division. You might think taking two of the top horses in each of the classic and long turf divisions and having them square off is like comparing apples and oranges, but the Grade 1 Tattersalls Gold is being run at a distance of 10.5 furlongs–the cut off point in distance between the two divisions. Don’t think for a minute there’s not a lot of money to be had in these classic and long turf division races. These two horses have been hauling in quite a bit of loot in their careers. Yak And Crying Out Loud Favored There’s a $500,000 purse at stake here, but neither of these horses’ connections are too concerned about that. Yak is 5/2 here, and the four year old son of Redoute’s Choice has earned a little over $6.4 million in 23 career starts, which is a pretty astounding stat. Yak threw a 116 speed figure two starts back in the 12-furlong Grade 1 5-Series Stakes, if you want to look at a little recent history on his past performance charts. Yak, who is #1 in the long turf division, squares off against Crying Out Loud, who is ranked #2 in the classic turf division, and since the distance of this race is right at the cusp of the two divisions, it’s going to be a pretty interesting match up for the crowd in Ireland to watch this weekend. And Crying Out Loud? Well, he’s the 2/1 favorite here, and all he’s done is win a little over $3.1 million in 18 lifetime starts. Crying Out Loud, who is owned by Skunkbarn Stables and is a five year old scratch bred son of Street Cry, won the Grade 1 Tattersalls Gold Stakes last year in only his ninth career start. His win here last May in Ireland was at the tail end of a seven-race win streak for Crying Out Loud, who came on like gangbusters in the classic turf division in a very short time after he debuted just ten months before he won this race for four year olds and up. These two have met before, but it was on a much bigger stage than the one on which they’ll be dancing this weekend. Yak and Crying Out Loud saw each other last in the Breeders’ Bowl Turf last November. Yak, who is owned by Jake Stables, finished second in the 2011 Breederse Bowl Turf, while Crying Out Loud was ninth. Advantage to Yak there. King Bee And Sandor at 5/1 The two favs here aren’t the only quality horses in this race–not by any means. There are some seriously nice turf horses here in Ireland Saturday who will be trying to get some glory for themselves by taking down Yak and Crying Out Loud, and one of them has already beaten Crying Out Loud. There’s King Bee, who’s owned by Super Stables, and Sandor, the English-bred horse who is owned by Galileo Stables. Both of those are 5/1 co-third favorites according to the odds makers. Sandor, the English-bred son of New Approach, has a ton of money in the bank too. He’s the one who has beaten Crying Out Loud already. In fact, Sandor has earned a little over $3.4 million in his 22 career starts, winning 10 of those. One of his bigger wins came in the Grade 2 Victoria Cup last time out, the race where he beat Crying Out Loud. That was back in late March, and all Sandor did there was bust out with a career-high 119 speed figure. He comes in here off a bit of a layoff–nearly two months, in fact–but after an effort like that, Sandor probably needed a break. He ran that 10-furlong Victoria Cup in a time of 1:59 2/5, which absolutely demolished the old stakes record in the Vic Cup. King Bee, who is a son of Henrythenavigator out of the Giantfs Causeway mare Slew’s Giant, faced off against Crying Out Loud in the Grade 1 Mr. Met Cap back in February, and he finished second to Crying Out Loud there. King Bee’s sporting some pretty nice speed figures coming in here, including a 114 and a 111 in two of his last five starts, but he’s been having a lot of trouble getting to the winner’s circle of late. He’s only got five wins in 25 career starts, and he hasn’t won since August of last year. But in his nine starts since then, he’s finished second four times and third twice. And he’s been just barely nudged out of the winner’s circle in those starts by some pretty monster-ish horses in this division. Impact Of Dreams, Twisted Gold Listed at 8/1 At 8/1 are the Japanese-bred Impact Of Dreams, who is making his 41st career start here in Ireland this weekend, and Twisted Gold, a five year old son of Distorted Humor. Impact Of Dreams, a five year old son of Deep Impact who is owned by Lissa’s Stables, has been running in this division quite a while now. He started his career back in March of 2009 as a two year old. His career high speed figure of 111 came quite a while back. In fact, it was way back in November of last year when he finished second in a 12-furlong listed stakes in Italy. His numbers lately haven’t been quite that high, but this guy has a knack for picking up a check. It has been a while since he has seen company like this, though. Last time out he threw a 99 speed figure in a third place finish in the 10.5 furlong Grade 3 Loxley Stakes at Berkshire on a yielding turf course. Twisted Gold has run in six graded stakes in his career, and he has yet to win one. Probably his most notable race recently was when he finished second to Jukebox Kid in a 16-furlong listed stakes back in November. Jukebox Kid was on a nine-race win streak at the time, and Twisted Gold did pretty well there to finish second to The Kid, considering that Jukebox Kid’s name was being bandied about for Horse Of The Year around that time last season. While Twisted Gold hasn’t won since October of last season, he’s been close a number of times, and four starts back he popped a 113 speed figure in a 12-furlong allowance race in Finland. He might like this drop in distance here this weekend. He’s owned by Rockriver Stables. Prince Of Kilmore, Lemon Drop Girl Are Your Long Shots Then you’ve got the two long shots who round out this Grade 1 Tattersalls Gold field this weekend. Prince Of Kilmore, a five year old son of Galileo, is 11/1 in this spot, and he comes from the barn of Fred And Vienna Stables. The Irish-bred makes only his second career graded start here, and he’s in a tough spot here. The last time he ran in a graded race was way back in September of 2010, when he finished seventh in the 14-furlong Grade 3 Prix De Loot. He has been dropped down in distance lately, and he’s relishing it. In six of his last seven starts, he’s thrown triple digit speed figures. He comes in here off a 10.5 furlong listed stakes win in Finland on May 5, where he popped a career-high 107 speed figure. Can he improve on that? He probably will here. He’s a horse that has been on the improve lately. The longest shot in the field is 14/1, and that is a four year old son of Lemon Drop Kid by the name of Lemon Drop Girl. Like Prince Of Kilmore, he’s only making his second career graded start here, and his speed figures of late are also pretty similar to that of Prince Of Kilmore. The first time he ran in a graded stakes was in December of last season, when he finished a well beaten third in the 12-furlong Grade 3 Queen Izzy Cap. He finished behind King Bee in that race, who he’ll see here again this weekend. Lemon Drop Girl is owned by Ben of Gowans Stables, a barn who has a pretty incredible strike rate of 22 percent winners and 51 percent in-the-money finishers. Lemon Drop Girl really hasn’t seen much of this kind of company so far in his career, but he comes in here having won three of his last six starts, and he finished either first or second in the other three efforts. He might be looking to bust out for a big effort here. If he’s going to make his mark in this division, this is definitely the spot for him to get some big league attention. Emmy’s Plays of the Day: Borrowing one of my brother’s colorful phrases here (and, yes, he really does say this), let’s go and cold cock a $50 exacta box of 1-7 this weekend, shall we? I don’t know exactly what cold cock means, except I know he played football in high school, and since he always says this when someone gets knocked down in a football game he’s watching on television, I would think it probably has something to do with hitting an object or a person extremely hard. It’s only $100 to box these two favorites (Crying Out Loud and Yak), and it looks like this just might be the best play here. Even if you catch, say, a $20 exacta on these two, you’ll still come out with about $500–a profit of $400. The exacta might even pay a little more than that, to tell the truth, especially if no one reads this article. It’s not like both of them are 4/5, right? Which one of the two favorites is going to win is anyone’s guess. Just for fun, you might want to play around with some big exotics, like maybe a 1,7 / 1,7 / ALL trifecta key. Hey, if you get one of these big long shots third here, it just might give you a pretty decent payout. Listen up, okay? While Yak and Crying Out Loud might seem to be the class of this race, there are a couple in here who are capable of busting out with some major league efforts this weekend, particularly Sandor, who threw that 119 speed figure a few starts back. That horse is definitely more than capable of tossing another monster race like he did in the Victoria Cup. This race is being run at 10.5 furlongs, and some of these other longer shots here are coming off exactly that distance in their last few starts. So let’s not go off and bet the whole farm here. You might want to hang on to the barn in case you need a place to sleep later.
Grade I
A mile and five sixteenths
Firm Turf
Purse: $500,000 ($300,000 To The Winner)
Conditions: All horses, 4 years old and up