‘Gateway’ Habit of Improvement Leading to Addictive Success

One year ago, he had just nailed down his third career win, scoring in a conditioned allowance race in his eleventh career start. Consistent, but largely untested throughout the formative stages of his evolution, his first attempt against stakes company was still two races in the future.

A year later and ten more races into his careful campaign, four-year-old Gatewaytothewest boasts three wins and a second place finish in four career graded stakes efforts, including two in a row entering Saturday’s Epsom Downs edition of the Equinics card.

In fact, the son of Arch is the only entrant in the monstrous field of seventeen entering the thirteen furlong test of endurance off of a winning performance, rallying for a dozen behind to easily draw out to victory in the twelve furlong Group I Milan Grand Prix six weeks ago.

Thirty-six-year-old Timmy Loesch, a seventeen year veteran in the irons, admits to initial skepticism about the relative newcomer to the elite ranks of turf routers in a large field comprised of several veteran powerhouses.

“My agent and I batted around a few names last week. Of course, he wanted to take a run at The End Begins. He’s thinking mainly about riding for the barn (Lenny) that everyone goes topsy-turvy wanting to ride for, but honestly, I seen a few that I thought I could win on without becoming some kind of common beggar.”

Loesch proceeded with a convoluted expansion of the circumstances surrounding acquiring the mount in vintage veteran jock storytelling mode.

“I had the pleasure, the honor, of riding the great Title Defense a few weeks ago in South Africa and when I watched his replays before the race, I couldn’t help but notice the stellar race by K’s Stagflation in the Dubai Turf Classic last year when he outran Title Defense. Against all I stand for, I plead like a starving bug boy to ride him when I hear he’ll be coming, but oh no, a top notch outfit like that has no use for me. They’ve got a boner for Jerry (Benisz).”

“So I tell my agent to hit this Kenny guy up for King Tachyon. My ignorant agent tells me that he thinks Harzheim’s riding him and that’s why he wants to hit up Lenny. He feeds me that tired old garbage about getting my foot in the door with the ‘Evil Empire’. Good God.”

“I can’t stand my agent anyway, so I call Benny (jockey Ben Khak Wu) and ask him if he can try to get me in with Kenny and on King Tachyon. So, Benny tells me my agent is almost as dumb as Harzheim’s agent – that Harzheim is taking off of Kenny’s horse to ride Lenny’s horse.”

“He’s trading Kenny for Lenny? I ask him and he says yeah and I say wow. I ask why Henny (Harzheim) would dump Kenny to ride for Lenny when Kenny rides Henny and Lenny never, ever rides him on any.”

“He says cause the agent for Henny has a new bug boy and is after every penny and thinks he can use Henny to get with Lenny. So I call Benny and ask about Kenny if Henny’s getting screwed by his agent to kiss up to Lenny.”

“Benny tells me that Kenny already promised King Tachyon to ‘Lead Foot’ – not Sally Ledwith, but his brother Kelly Ledwith – the good ‘Lead Foot’. Benny tells me that Kenny felt he owed Kelly a favor after Kenny got Kelly as drunk as a 129 pound man can get the night before last year’s Breeder’s Bowl and cost both of them any chance with King Tachyon.”

“So, I tell Benny – I can’t ride Quaint again – I already got him destroyed once at 9-2, and that was a bloody allowance race. I thought that Steve guy was going to pummel me after the race.”

“So, Benny tells me – there’s a horse coming for the race that he did everything wrong on. Got him left, almost dropped himself nine times in an eighth of a mile. Buried himself like Grant and some tomb for seven-sixteenths of the last half mile – and STILL won the race on him. Says he didn’t even want to ride the horse. Says he rode him once before and got no run out of him at all in a much easier spot. Says he’s turned into a new horse in the last six months.”

“So, I ask Benny – Should I tell my agent to hustle him?”

“So, Benny asks me – What are you stupid?”

“So, I says that I’m a jock and it should be fairly obvious that I am.”

“So, Benny says, just let him call the guy – the horse has run twenty-one times and has had twenty different riders – he’s the only jock to ride him more than once. He’s got clout or some such thing.”

At this point, Loesch grinned and reclined, drew a cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket without even removing the pack itself. The cigarette met the flame of a lit match on the route from his pocket to his mouth, leaving the question of when he had even lit the match.

Loesch’s posture and mannerisms left a jarring sensation that they had been well-rehearsed over the years in various reincarnations of the Hotel No-Tell, that at least one person had reached completion in the exchange.

Given the blustery, nuanced recap of every thought that went into securing the mount on Gatewaytothewest, it seemed clear that Loesch felt he had made the right decision about which entrant to ride – until asked directly if that was, in fact, the case.

“Hell, I don’t know. I just show up and ride them. My agent makes the decisions.”

The beaten favorite in the Milan Grand Prix, third behind Gatewaytothewest most recently, is the aforementioned King Tachyon. The likely pacesetter under Kelly “Lead Foot” Ledwith, the six-year-old, five-time Grade I winner at the mile and a half distance will make a rare foray into new territory on Saturday trying this slightly longer distance.

Like Gatewaytothewest, King Tachyon exploded during his four-year-old season, racking up three graded stakes wins late in the season after beginning the year eligible for, and competing in, a non-three lifetime allowance condition.

His five-year-old season was equally impressive, but featured his defining moment on the racetrack when he powered through a front-running romp of the Dubai Turf Classic at 8-1. Defeating eleven millionaires and a field that cumulatively had banged out almost seventy-five million dollars in earnings, and unleashing a sizzling 118 speed rating in the process, King Tachyon put the underline and the exclamation mark on his resume with that singular performance.

After a disappointing fifth in the Breeder’s Bowl Classic followed by a narrow loss in the Grade I Los Angeles Turf Cup as a fairly decisive favorite in what appeared to be a mostly overmatched field, this season began where the last left off.

Seeking redemption at the site of his memorable win, King Tachyon went postward as the clear favorite in the 2012 edition of the Dubai Turf Classic and staggered in thirteenth, beating just one home, nearly twenty-five lengths behind the winner, and twenty-two behind Saturday’s rival K’s Stagflation.

He shipped to Newmarket for the Group II Clubhouse Stakes in search of some class relief, but instead found himself matched up with K’s Stagflation once more. This time, able to make his signature clear early lead, he got his revenge on his rival and rebounded with an easy win.

Appearing to be back in action and having shed fears that he had been battered by Father Time, King Tachyon shipped to Italy to face a field of eight that had combined earnings of less than half of his career winnings. He was not only the best horse in the field, he was the clear speed of the field. At one point loping on the lead by more than a half-dozen, the win appeared inevitable for the first ten of twelve furlongs.

Even at the eleven furlong marker, he still appeared a possible, if no longer a likely winner. But, it was Gatewaytothewest that cruised home in front, while the veteran sputtered home third, five behind the upstart victor.

It may have been, to borrow an Olympic themed, overused expression – a passing of the torch. The similarities between the career progressions of King Tachyon and Gatewaytothewest are somewhat striking.

Of course, it may also have been a prelude to a newly contrived phase in the career progression of King Tachyon – revenge and redemption. Perhaps the similarities between Gatewaytothewest and K’s Stagflation will suddenly become more evident than those between the former and King Tachyon. That similarity being passing the proverbial torch back to whom you have received it from.

In keeping with a theme regarding age and form cycles, K’s Stagflation was a six-time winner at age three, a five-time winner at age four, a four-time winner at age five, and now, nearing August of his six-year-old season, is looking for his first win of the season.

To be fair, he has run only four times in 2012 and has hardly been a disaster on the track. After a freshening early in the year, his return race led to a fourth place finish in a minor stake, but has since rattled of strong runner-up finishes in the Group I Dubai Turf Classic, the Group II Clubhouse Stakes, as well as the Group II Saint Cloud Grand Prix.

Still, as a template for consistency in his division, winning more than half of his career starts on turf prior to this season, even solid second place finishes seem ominous. Moreover, eight of his fifteen wins on turf, or more than half, are graded stakes wins, so it isn’t easy to press on with a theory that he has simply been facing much better rivals of late. On the flip side, while he has routinely knocked heads with the best in his division, he has actually just a single Grade I victory in his career, ironically his stakes debut while making his last start of the sophomore season.

So, while you can ping-pong back and forth with cases for and against the veteran son of Smart Strike, there is one element of his past performances that warrants serious consideration in making a final assessment of his chances on Saturday. In ten career starts at thirteen furlongs or beyond, K’s Stagflation has seven wins, a second, and a third place finish – including five graded stakes wins and a runner-up in one of Japan’s premier Group I races, the Winter Cup at this mile and five-eighths distance. His lone poor effort in those ten starts came in his only try at two miles, clearly beyond the scope of his comfort zone at the elite level.

How important a factor is that prowess at the extended routes among the upper echelon of his peers? Consider that the entire remainder of the field, sixteen veterans with over 450 combined races under their cumulative belt, has only managed to win a total of three graded stakes races beyond a mile and a half. Only 30-1 longshot Harbor Town with a win in the Group III Freer Stakes over just four foes and Lenny’s The End Begins, with his win in the Group I Vicky Derby as a three-year-old, have won at this distance, while 25-1 shot Skunks For Liberty relished the yielding turf in the two-mile Group III Barberville just two starts ago.

Among those that lack definitive success at this extended distance, but offer a glimmer of curious potential, perhaps the most intriguing of the bunch is six-year-old Comeback Cat. Somewhat appropriately named, the son of Storm Cat out of the Grade I winning Vy The Quarterback, earner of nearly two million dollars over eleven wins in a thirty-one race career, had only a singular restricted stakes win to his credit until late in his four-year-old season.

Primarily a sprinter with only an entry level allowance win to his credit around turns, he made his way down to the claiming ranks for his original owner and breeder and was all out to win that day while trading barns in the process.

After a mild attempt at a stretch-out in allowance company to the near route distance of seven and a half furlongs that resulted in a dull fourth in his first try for Nemesis Stables, the new ownership jumped in the deep end and gave him a shot in true routes. In back-to-back open allowance races at ten and a half furlongs, Comeback Cat began to live up to his moniker, winning both easily.

Buoyed by the sudden upgrade in performance, he jumped into stakes company, winning again at a mile and a quarter, followed by his graded stakes debut in the Grade II Marcos Footwear at that ten furlong distance, again resulting in a surprising, but convincing win.

After a momentary setback in the Group III National that left some questioning his legitimacy, Comeback Cat went into overdrive. Huge Group II wins in successive starts in both the Sanka High and the Second Coming stamped his ticket for the Group I Manha Manha, which he took with ease and completed his ascent to elite company.

As if to silence any remaining naysayers, he returned to California for the prestigious Grade I Movieland Turf Cup and won again. Two months later, and after a third place finish in the Group I Eclipsed Stakes here at Berkshire over a soggy course, he again returned to the States to nail down yet another Grade I win in the Windy City Turf Classic in Chicago.

His storybook five-year-old season culminated with a trip to the Far East, a voyage that may have pushed the limits of his globe-trotting ambitiousness, as he floundered badly in both races to close out his otherwise amazing 2011 season. Though he has not quite captured the media attention that he earned last season through his five starts this season, he has made a conscientious decision to make an attempt at succeeding beyond his bread and butter distance of a mile and a quarter.

Notwithstanding his dull fifth place finish last time at two-miles, his races at eleven, twelve, and thirteen furlongs this season have all been admirable efforts, though the lone win occurred in the mile and a half Grade II Sandy Ray in California. Still, his best speed rating of the season thus far, a 112, is on par with his top races from last season, and was earned in his second place finish at Saturday’s mile and five-eighths distance when second to the talented Magniforma in the Group II Cold Plate in Germany.

Already a perfectly good tale of second-chances and overachievement, Comeback Cat’s story has been told by many as though the book has been closed. Having lived up to his name for most of his career thus far, it’s far from safe to say, but still reasonable to guess that there may yet be a final chapter that includes Saturday’s performance.

Looking for a bit of a comeback himself, Lenny’s The End Begins has been without a graded stakes win for nearly ten months, dating back nine races, yet may very well go off as the post-time favorite on trainer reputation alone.

One of the most highly touted juveniles in recent memory prior to his debut race, there was no shortage of hype and allusions to his being a “daddy’s boy” – a reference that suggested he would be, literally, the next coming of his superstar father, Creepshow.

A sixteen-time winner, half of which were Grade I wins, and earner of nearly eight million, Creepshow won from six and a half furlongs to a mile and a half, with victories at nearly every interval between. A full brother to current top-flight sophomore Sound of Souls, the physical similarities between the trio of grays – Sound of Souls, his older brother Creepshow, and Creepshow’s son, The End Begins – are striking. And not only did the three share their mesmerizing physical appearances, but they all shared a mesmerizing on-track presence in the morning.

As an unstarted two-year-old in April, people were already talking about The End Begins as the best two-year-old on the planet.

One year later, in April of his sophomore season, those same people were wondering how he could have possibly been 6-1 on the tote board when he finally realized that potential and broke his maiden in career start number five. Clearly a less versatile runner distance-wise than his celebrity dad, The End Begins quickly matured into a competent route horse when he was given a chance to test the going beyond classic distances and into marathon events.

Upon breaking his maiden, he progressed through his allowance conditions lickety-split, losing only once in his next four races, that over soft going. He jumped straight into graded stakes company but could manage only a second and third place finish in his first two tries, but again, he had been burdened by off-going in both races. When able to find firm turf in his next start, the Group I Vicky Derby, he unleashed a monster performance, winning easily and becoming both a stakes winner and a group stakes winner for the first time in the same breath. He also secured his spot as one of only three in this field to win a graded stakes at Saturday’s mile and five-eighths distance with that crucial win.

Predictably, the bandwagon, which had been abandoned just months into his career, was jammed up like a Volkswagen full of clowns at the circus once more. And then just months later, that same bandwagon was all but abandoned again, as The End Begins struggled through his next eight starts, winning only the Sugar Mountain Challenge over this surface.

With as many seventh, eighth, and twelfth place finishes as he had first, second, and third place finishes in that period, the end of The End Begins had seemingly begun. But, eleven months after his defining win in the Vicky Derby, he returned to the winner’s circle in a Group I event, capturing the Canada Turf, just the third stakes win in what seemed like a decade long career to that point.

Now, nearly ten months and seven losses from eight starts later, still much of the fanfare surrounding Saturday’s event revolves around the aura of The End Begins. Ask nearly any layperson who he or she fancies in the race and after a quick glance, many robotically compute that “Lenny’s horse should be tough” or if the individual has a slightly more profound grasp of the composition of the field, they inevitably deduce that The End Begins “is due.”

The End Begins is, in fact, due. But that fact is more a symptom of what has ailed him throughout his celebrated, but ultimately disappointing career – flashes of the brilliance of his old man, Creepshow, mired in lulls of mediocrity and contrasting performances. The raw talent exists, the aptitude at the distance exists, and most recognizably, the competence and reverence of the human connections exists. Unfortunately, from a bettor’s perspective, at anything short of juicy double-digit odds, the wagering value most certainly does not exist.

The quintessential “wiseguy horse” status in this deep field has been bestowed upon four-year-old Capinsky, trading at just 6-1, making him the surprising current second favorite behind the accomplished K’s Stagflation.

Perhaps that adulation is warranted in part by the fact that Capinsky exits a rallying third place finish in the Group I Saint Cloud Grand Prix, finishing just behind his rival K’s Stagflation in that spot. Most likely, the unexpected infatuation with the relatively inexperienced son of Cape Cross hinges on the fact that he has won three of his last five starts, coinciding with the colt’s transition from sprints and short two-turn races to classic distances and these “marathon” routes.

In his very first start beyond a mile and a sixteenth, Capinsky scored his first graded stakes win in the mile and an eighth Grade III Cant Breeder’s Cup against straight three-year-olds at Delaware. He shipped to New York for the Grade II Usain Bolt, also facing straight threes at that same distance, and again performing extremely well to be third.

He shipped overseas to New Zealand, presumably to remain in the company of strictly sophomores for the Group I 2000 Dark Beers while turning back to a flat mile. Though he finished fourth, he did run well, and remained in New Zealand for his three-year-old finale in the Group III Northern Beer Cap to be run at ten and a half furlongs, by far the longest distance he had yet attempted.

The experiment was a success as he crushed the field in a career best performance and solidified his status as a “long router”. He returned to the States for his four-year-old debut, facing a salty field of older rivals in the Grade II Marcos Footwear in California that featured six other graded stakes winners and several millionaires in the group.

Far back early, nearly twenty behind down the backside, Capinsky annihilated the field with an eye-popping rally that left a lasting impression on race fans that day – to the point that even in a field full of qualified, quality veterans that he faces Saturday, eager fans and bettors are counting on a repeat performance of that effort. They are counting on a repeat of that particular effort because his four subsequent performances following that big win in the Marcos Footwear have been what can best be described as varying tiers of less impressive.

His aforementioned most recent third in the Saint Cloud Grand Prix is obviously a wonderful race, but he fell well short of defeating K’s Stagflation. His win two back in the Group II Carlsbad Lessons was nice enough and run in a quick time, but the field was nothing to brag about with only three graded winners in the field and the lone million dollar earner, Scabby Crabby, beginning a trend of listlessness that has since resulted in two last place finishes by many lengths.

Capinsky’s two other starts preceding those races, seventh at 5-1 in a minor stake in Texas, and sixth by more than a dozen in the Group II Sanka High, can only be described as blemishes on what had been a starkly improved form. A devout optimist would qualify those efforts as a “bounce” off of the big race in the Marcos Footwear and point out that he trounced Gatewaytothewest in the Sanka High. But even still, the latter argument does more to disqualify Gatewaytothewest than it does to support Capinsky.

Much likeThe End Begins, Capinsky has shown the sort of glimpses of brilliance and subtle indicators of superiority that draws fans in – the “how good is he?” mentality – but with that sexy allure that draws in the race fan hoping to see the unexpected but threatened comes an influx of wagering activity. Hence, the term “wiseguy horse”, and hence, the fact that both The End Begins as well as Capinsky are both exciting runners that happen to feel like very poor wagering options at short prices in this field.

If you are adamant in your love for Capinsky in this spot, then there has to be room to consider the fairly reliable Modern Science, currently 10-1, and having finished just behind Capinsky in consecutive races. Fifth, just four behind Capinsky in the Saint Cloud Grand Prix, and third in the Carlsbad Lessons, the four-year-old Galileo colt had previously rattled off four wins and four seconds in his eight prior starts.

Yet to win a graded stakes and yet to win a race beyond a mile and a quarter, it is worth acknowledging that he was sold after going winless in his first five races and then still failed to break his maiden for the new connections until career start number nine. Coincidentally, he finally broke through in his first try beyond a mile and an eighth and has never finished worse than second in nine starts at a mile and a quarter, including five wins and runner-up finishes in the Group III National Stakes, the Group II Second Coming, and Group II Hardcourt.

Modern Science has since broken that streak of top two finishes with his third and fifth, respectively, since stretching out to a mile and a half. But, while first-glance logic would suggest that he simply can’t go that far, a bit more evaluation lends some credence to the simply notion that he was reacting more to the possibility of significantly more talent in those races.

Perhaps he is simply overmatched and tackling a distance at least a quarter-mile farther than his limit. However, if one thing has been evident throughout the glimpse at the careers of many of these more accomplished, older veterans, it is that improvement is not always linear and often peaks late in a four-year-old season. It took him nine tries to break his maiden. Is it inconceivable to believe that he may be on the cusp of another period of improvement following an apparent plateau?

Lightly-raced five-year-old Blakely made his career debut on his fourth birthday, tiring late to finish second, but came right back two weeks later to graduate with relative ease. Second again in his first try against winners, he stretched all the way out to a mile and a half for his fourth career start against non-two allowance foes and destroyed the field by more than a half dozen.

Stepping into stakes company off the win, he hit a speed bump when finishing sixth by nearly twenty, but quickly got back on track. After finishing second while returning to allowance company, he rattled off three quick wins in a row, including his first Group stakes win in the Weld Stakes and then his first Group I win in the Champion Stakes.

Like many of the others in this field, the hopeful, ambitious decision to test competition in the Far East proved to be a setback as Blakely finished sixth in the Group I Fall Tent Show in Japan before a decent fourth place finish in Hong Kong’s Group I King Kong.

He returned to the States, shipping to Florida for the Grade II Buck Dharma just fifty-four weeks after his maiden victory and cruised to an uplifting win that sent him packing back overseas and back to Group I competition. With four Group I starts to follow in the Ackland, the 5-Series, the Good Day, and the Coronation Pilsner, Blakely resumed a new winless streak, mustering up only a pair of decent third place finishes as his best performances.

Blakely shipped here five weeks ago after a mildly disappointing third in the Coronation Pilsner at short odds in which he managed to outfinish Comeback Cat. Interestingly, he made a wild transition from the mile and a half distance of the Pilsner to start in a five and a half furlong allowance over the surface. As the heavy 9-5 favorite, he loitered a dozen back in last early and though he managed only to rally into fifth, there was much post-race critiquing of the effort delivered by jockey Didden Rideout.

It’s a bit far-fetched to become presumptive of some kind of intended betting coup, anticipating this race and looking for good odds on the tote when you consider his limited success in general and in particular, the questions surrounding the distance at this level. Still, he has earned nearly a million and a half in just seventeen races and with only three stakes wins to his credit, so it’s impossible to portray him as blatantly overmatched in the talent department.

In contrast, 18-1 longshot Dylan Monte seemingly lacks the talent credentials with only a single graded stakes win and fewer than a quarter million dollars earned. But, that lone important win was notched at a mile and a half in the Group III Gary Trent and did punctuate a three-race win streak at that distance.

Of his eight career wins, half have been at twelve furlongs, with one at eleven, one at thirteen, and two at fourteen panels. The most recent of those wins at a mile and three-quarters was over this very surface in the Opera Ticket Turf Special.

Clearly, Dylan Monte is operating at an apparent talent disadvantage. But he brings a few tangibles to the race that several of his more talented rivals are lacking or have not demonstrated of late – a fondness for this surface, consistency, good current form, and above all, a near fetish for races at a mile and a half and beyond.

Also boasting a recent stakes effort over this surface, Skunks For Liberty exits the Group I Gold Glass, in which, frankly, he stunk.

Well-rated on the pace through the first mile of the two-mile feature that day, the chestnut four-year-old stopped badly in the far turn, fading to eighth and beaten two dozen lengths. It would be convenient to blame it on the two-mile distance, which may or may not be the case, but considering he was exiting a front-running romp at that distance in the Group III Barberville, it seems  more likely that the blame lay with the fact that he was simply overmatched.

Like several of the others, Skunks For Liberty was slow to get rolling in his career, breaking his maiden in career start number seven – but once he found his way to these longer route races, he rapidly progressed through his conditions and into stakes competition. His maiden victory began a four race win streak that culminated with a stakes win in his first try at the level, but he was quickly rebuffed of consecutive win number five when jumped into the Group III World Weekly News 2000.

After toiling in conditioned allowance company for several starts following his loss in the World Weekly News, he finally broke through with a handy win at that level when stretched out to a mile and three-quarters. He then returned to stakes company in the Group II Sandy Ray at a mile and a half and nearly sprung the 15-1 upset when falling just three-quarters of a length short.

His aforementioned win in the Barberville followed, which prompted the ascent into Group I company here, and while that seemed to be a slap of reality to the face, it doesn’t exactly negate the fact that Skunks For Liberty has been steadily improving at these longer races. Sure, he hasn’t proven that he can hang with the best in here, but unlike some of the others, he also doesn’t appear to be incapable of improving enough to be some sort of presence in the race at this point in his career.

Arguably among the most consistent and certainly among the most well-spotted throughout the bulk of his thirty-five race career, Bedouin Soundclash hasn’t exactly been opposed to big, deep fields, and he has been showing up for stakes events lately – but he has never made a habit of running in big, deep fields in stakes company.

Boasting a nearly amazing streak of top four finishes dating back nearly two years, or his last twenty-three races, the veteran six-year-old has been first, second, or third in twenty-three of his last twenty-seven starts since being claimed for $125,000 in March of 2010.

For those that may assume that his record of reliability has been manufactured through sponsored events or four horse fields, rest assured, he is legit. The average allowance field size in that span is between eight and nine, with the only “soft-spot” shopping apparent on his form happening in recent stakes races. Even still, he has been below 2-1 on the tote in each of his four recent stakes starts, with only a second and a trio of third place finishes resulting.

Bedouin Soundclash probably can’t win this race for any number of reasons. But, in his own unique way, in the context of this particular racing universe that these horses all exist in, he may be one of the most impressive competitors in the lot.

In a similar, but less extreme vain, four-year-old King Porter Stomp has won six of eleven since being claimed for $35,000 out of a losing performance in a non-two condition. In fact, only twice has he failed to finish in the trifecta for the new connections, those being losses in his only two tries against group stakes company.

All in all, he has hammered out five allowance wins and a stakes win since the acquisition, including a handful of romping wins between a mile and five-eighths and two miles. So while, he has the ability to cover the distance and he has been remarkably consistent while well-spotted, his deviations from that recipe for success shine like neon when evaluating his realistic chance at this level.

An excellent claim that has been masterfully managed to this point, his double-digit length trouncing in both the Group II Fitness Cup in which he staggered in eleventh and his distant fourth in the Group II Second Henry over this surface paint a bleak picture of what can be expected on Saturday.

Looking to continue a three-race win streak over the Berkshire surface here, trainer Steve F. Lagdown is hoping that a return to one of Quaint’s favorite locations translates into a plunge into the fountain of youth for the six-year-old. A two-time stakes winner here that earned a career best speed rating of 116 when taking the Storm Charmer Challenge over this turf course, the obvious downside is that the most recent of those local stakes wins occurred almost twenty-seven months ago.

Just $26,574 of hitting the million dollar mark in earnings, Quaint is a five-time stakes winner, including scores in the Group III Loxley right here in Berkshire, the Grade III Simon Says, and the Group II Princess of Whales, all at a mile and a half. Overall, the veteran of forty-five career races has been victorious fifteen times, registering almost two-thirds of those wins in allowance company.

With his most recent stakes win registered nearly a year and a half ago, and his most recent group stakes win about four months before that, these days Quaint depends on catching an allowance group on a day when he brings his best stuff to be effective. Make no mistake, he is still able to dig deep and fire off excellent races – he just can’t dig deep enough to match his excellence of days past and finds himself having an off-day with more regularity against fields he would have crushed with little effort when in his prime.

At this point, Quaint probably isn’t the horse you want to run up and bet your last two dollars on. But, if you are going to lose your last two dollars betting the wrong horse, you just smile if he does happen to be the one that beats you out of your money.

As a son of A.P. Indy out of a Distorted Humor mare that never debuted until the fiftieth week of his three-year-old season, you have to assume that five-year-old First A.P. must have had a leg that was on sideways or was such an orangutan that they didn’t get him broke until the rest of his crop was thinking about retirement.

When he finally did hit the track, he wasted little time manhandling a short field at 2-5 in his debut and then backing that up with a strong second and then a win against entry level allowance rivals. Skipping a condition to face a field of non-winners of four in his fourth career start, he caught a drying out track that had been muddy and made a late rally to be third while stretching out to a mile and a quarter. So far, so good, through four career starts.

But then things began to go haywire as the brown colt struggled to nail down his third career win. Shortening back up, switching to turf, stretching back out, trying a muddy main track – he went seven starts before winning again, eventually finding a short field of conditioned allowance rivals at a mile and three-eighths on turf that he could manhandle. He came right back in similar spot and won again, but then jumped into the deep end off of those back-to-back allowance wins and tried the Grade II Flying Carpet Handicap in New York.

He was soundly thrashed in that spot, beating just one home and about twenty-three behind the winner, but he seemed to exit the race in good order. Surprisingly, despite the demoralizing loss, the defeat seemed to pick his head up as he has since won twice with four seconds from six starts. Now, he has been increasingly well-spotted even while testing the ranks of stakes company and it has paid dividends as the slow developer seems to be finding the best stride of his career lately.

He is capable on both dirt and turf and has been effective at a mile and a quarter and beyond, but I don’t think it would be any shock to predict he’ll need to run the race of his lifetime to split the field here. He faced a few good rivals, and one very good winner, in his start in the Flying Carpet, and yes, he has improved since even that race. But, this will be his toughest test to date – depth, size, talent, distance – and it doesn’t figure to be an easy test.

It’s a bit hard to figure how Harbour Town has amassed the over one and a quarter million dollars in earnings that he has banked when glancing at his career record. That isn’t intended to be an insult as he has won ten of twenty-five races – no easy feat on its own –but you see a maiden win, a few conditioned allowance wins, an open allowance, a Group III win, a listed stakes win, and then a couple more allowance wins.

That’s a very nice record, but it seems like he should have maybe a half million dollars in winnings instead of the massive sum he has accumulated. You figure he must have run a few seconds in some big money races, but then you see that other than a second in the Group I Winter Cup, there really isn’t anything that jumps out at you.

The moral of this obtuse evaluation is that there is just something a little bit scary about this Red Ransom five-year-old. The past performance show a useful allowance runner that took advantage of his peak form to score a few aberrantly impressive and fast wins in fairly big races during his four-year-old season. It’s almost impossible to build a substantive case for his chances in Saturday’s race off the entirety of his form, but much like trying to understand how his record and earnings seem so much more impressive than his actual form, there’s a feeling that there’s more to Harbour Town than meets the eye. He’s the type you include in your trifecta on gut instinct – you just sense you’ve completely misread his form.

Six-year-old Abano will make milestone start number fifty in his career on Saturday and to his credit, though not a win machine with only five victories – or about ten percent – he is very reliable when in the right spot, which he almost always is in the right spot, finishing in the top three almost two-thirds of the time over his career.

Unfortunately for Abano, it would be nearly impossible to demonstrate with any conviction that on Saturday, he is in something remotely resembling the right spot. The connections are obviously adept with a condition book, deliberately taking him through his lifetime conditions, then keeping him in conditioned allowance races even beyond that point.

Even when they deviated just once and grudgingly gave him a start in a minor stakes and then he responded with a huge second place finish and a career best speed rating at 19-1, back he returned to conditioned allowance company. He was given one more try in stakes company, one which did not pan out as well, and that relegated him to the most cozy conditioned allowances allowed by law for twenty starts leading into Saturday’s race. Albano is a very neat Indiana-bred that has been managed to near perfection and is taking a big leap into a deep pool. But, I suspect that ‘plan A’ was another conditioned allowance and I’d be willing to bet he’ll find one next time.

The longest shot in the field as well as the elder statesman of the bunch, eight-year-old Credit Advantage is making his fifth start back off of a nearly two and a half-year layoff. With a career mark of twelve for fifty with twenty-six top-three finishes, the brown senior citizen was a fairly useful competitor in his prime.

 A six-time stakes winner that was able to register a stakes win at least once in four consecutive seasons, his wins have been registered at eight different distances ranging from seven and a half furlongs to a mile and three-quarters. Though he has competed against quality runners at points in his career, including a fourth behind the great Puppet Regime in a restricted Grade I five years ago, this race is clearly asking a lot of him.