Never Less Than Second – Black Preserves

I suppose I’m not really a noob any longer. I’ve been here since 1761 according to the established sign on my website RottNRoll Racing. I’ve even had horses race in graded stakes races before – 2 horses in the last Equinics (they each finished 4th), a few runs each by the girls in the spglitter stable, Eruption’s occasional rival Smooth Belief, and the pride of skunkieluv stable, graded stakes placed Meadowgold. This is different though. This horse is my creation, bred by me during a late Saturday night gamble, fed by Tbgifted’s breeding lectures, inspired by the frenzy with which the GSR denizens fought over this sire for a contest. She cost a modest 407. I forget if it was bps or credits and it doesn’t matter when the cost isn’t prohibitive. It’s not that hard to rack up 407 bps in a full stable of able runners.

She was born late in the year into the mindcrime stable, home of Smooth Belief. He didn’t mind her arrival. He was on vacation at the time anyway. She didn’t carry a Queensrÿche inspired name like Geoff Tate, Rockenfield, or Wilton. I don’t recall what her original name was going to be. All I remember is that it was already taken and I had to come up with something quick! I looked at her breeding, Ecton Park x Forest Wildcat x Black Tie Affair, and thought…a park, a forest, a preserve…But she came out sounding like something you’d put on your toast. I can think of a hundred better names now but she still sounds like jam – Black Preserves.

Her very first raceday was in Jamaica, a modest $13,100 MSW, 6 furlongs on the dirt. After all I’d heard at GSR about Ecton Park I thought the distance would be a piece of cake for her. She finished second but with an astounding 85 SP. Hope rose within me that this filly would be different. I got brave and pushed her along to West By God Virginia to a low level ALW2L race at 4.5F. Again she finished second and again her SP gave me hope – 86. On to Nebraska where she went out at the same class level as her first start but at 5.5F. She broke nearly last but closed like a rocket…a rocket that crossed the finish line first, two and quarter lengths in front, with yet another 85 SP. And on that happy note she finished her 2 year old season.

I wondered what the new year would bring for her. I wasn’t sure what to expect when she turned 3. I’d heard tales of horror…of how stakes running 2 yos became claimers overnight when they became 3. *GASP!* I’m already an insomniac. Those chatroom tales made me sleep even less! So with those tales ringing in my ears I cautiously entered her in an track restricted allowance. With a purse of $7,400 I figured that I hadn’t overplaced her. Turned out to be a small field and instead of her usual closing run, she stalked the pace in second, turned it up a notch in the stretch and won by two and half. Her SP was in the same range as her previous finishes – 84. Nice, I thought. I’ve got a good little allowance filly here and she appears to have survived the dreaded getting older thingy.

OK. I know I should not have closed my mind at that point. I should have dreamed bigger. But ya gotta admit…neither of us girls are exactly bluebloods. I’m no Topicount or Foxon. And Black Preserves is no Mumbai or Dubai Prospector. Plus, I was scared. I was afraid to place her wrong and see her never be the same after an injury. Caution ruled whenever she turned sharp. Next stop Iowa and another low level allowance with a soft field but a half furlong longer. Her trip was almost identical to the last race but this time…she won by only a nose. Noses scare me. Old men with hair coming out of them…and horses winning by them. Makes me wonder how “real” was that win? Is it a sign my horse is gonna start to struggle at this level? Black Preserves wasn’t worried but I was, even with the little bit of improvement in speed up to 87. I got a grip though and decided…I gotta start somewhere. I can’t keep lurking in the bottom level allowances because I’m afraid my horse can’t cut it. I gotta find out if she can’t. So I bit the bullet and entered her in an open allowance race in Idaho. Sure, it wasn’t New York or even Northern California, but it was an honest to goodness $11,200 open allowance race at 6F. And Black Preserves was going for her fourth win a row.

I shouldn’t have worried. She handled the race like she had her first three as a 2 yo. Hung back and closed like a rocket to win by 2 1/4 again. This time I got really excited as fear flew out the window. Four straight wins and now a 90 SP. Wooo hooo! So we went back to Nebraska, in a bigger money open allowance. I remember thinking as I watched the race, “Haven’t I seen this race before?” There she was, repeating her prior performances, winning in that same easy manner by the same number of lengths. That fifth win felt weird. This kinda stuff doesn’t happen to the un-royals.

The weird excitement returned when she got sharp again. Ohmigod this could be her sixth win! “Or her first defeat,” muttered the evil fear in my brain. We were going back to West Virginia, another familiar open allowance. But BP was like a machine, churning out yet another precision run. I didn’t know what to think. Win number 6 and a speed jump up to 97. That SP told me her allowance days were numbered even more than the 6 wins did. But fear held sway just a little longer and we went to Mississippi for our last allowance race. This time she didn’t hold back as much as she had in the past. She was becoming a pace stalker. But with that difference in running style I saw that her win margin was narrower and her speed figures higher. Her seventh win in a row was accomplished with a 101 SP. And now we were off to the stakes races.

I think we both had bad nerves. In Mexico for the Northern Theif Stakes, up against a field of 4 runners whom Nextbonus had cautioned us would not give us the pace Black Preserves liked. I don’t know what the splits were but I think had the race been 6.5F rather than 6F that we would not have lost by a neck that day. I was more deflated than BP. Skunk was depressed. He threw up. Smooth Belief nosed him out of the stall and turned his back on his beloved chum, disgusted by our long faces (and in Skunk’s case, stinkiness too.) But BP calmly watched us all. She knew something the rest of us didn’t I guess. It’s funny to admit that a horse is right. And of course she was because her very next race, another stakes – now that I’m there at that level, I’m THERE until they prove to me that I gotta go back down – in Idaho was yet another win. Even though the field was smaller by one, the distance was 6.5F and she won by 1 1/2 with a 103 SP.

That did it. Caution flew out the window. I knew Bonus was cheering for us. Writing about BP for the BTB had made him a fan. The Kentucky Horsemen and the GSR gang were by now all watching how this 3 yr old filly did. With all eyes on us…I bit the bullet again. Which brings this long winded tale of my fear right up to today. The eve of BP’s first graded stakes. We’re here because we earned this berth but how we two un-royal girls managed this is still a mystery to me. My cuticles are chewed up. Skunk is nervous too and I have to give him squirts of whipped cream from the whipped cream can to keep him calm. I don’t know how I’m gonna sleep tonight.

Looking at the field for the Dynamita Sprint G3 I realize that BP and Bourbon Coffee are both at 7/2. Bourbon Coffee is ranked #6 this week. We’re only 75. Our earnings don’t even come close. We’re just so…un-royal. I don’t know if we can pull this off. I worry that it will tax BP as graded races have taxed my other horses. Smooth Belief has never been the same since his last graded run. Am I about to kill my filly’s career by my ambition? Meadowgold gives us a sarcastic look and I realize, if he can do it and continue on…BP can too. She’s not royally bred and I’m no Breeder’s Bowl trainer but I think this is where we belong. Tomorrow will, like Tammy, tell us true. And if we fail, maybe we will try again. But there is no going back to those lazy allowances for these un-royal girls. We’ve decided to leave our fear back at the allowance level and we’re ready to take on the sim and collect us some more stakes wins! Get ready for some weird jam on your toast, simworld…Black Preserves is here!