‘Congressional’ Action Warranted

(In memory of the late Ralph Edwards, host of the American pioneering tribute-TV show, “This Is Your Life”, who died earlier this week:)

“Dyna Kingdom, this is your race! 

“Yes, Dyna Kingdom, you have been selected for the honor of a stakes race being named for you!  Only the talented get their due, and you surely were talented enough, being a stakes winner at 3, and stakes-placed at 2.  You were an old-school horse, your roots to the Sim going way back, back in the day, week 418.  You didn’t quite get to excel at the highest level, but you earned your stripes in allowance and starter company.  Dyna Kingdom, dear mare, you were a popular Florida horse.  There have been two races run for you down there in 2004, but this is the only 2005 race that has been slated.  Nevertheless, for being a good filly on the track…Dyna Kingdom, this is your race!

“You get a race in….Arkansas!  It’s the $75,000 Dyna Kingdom Bonanza, scheduled for the weekend before America’s Thanksgiving at a distance of a mile-and-a-quarter for fillies and mares on the dirt!  But wait…there’s more!  The compact field of six older fillies and mares features one of the top handicap mares in the Sim, a filly by the name of Congressional who is 9-for-18 lifetime and a three-time graded stakes winner!  You also get her main contender, Suzyjinsky!  She’s a three-time Grade I winner who captured the top Sim race for distaffers in 2002, the Breeders Bowl Distaff!  It’s a compact field, but it’s loaded with quality, and they all turned out for you, Dyna Kingdom, because, Dyna Kingdom, this is your race!

“Tell her about the field, CV!”

Congressional [Storm Cat-Con Unit, by Caerleon] draws the inside in this mile-and-a-quarter stakes, and as trained by dawgpound, she’s won half of her eighteen starts over a long and illustrious career.  She won the Grade II Larry Laffer Stakes as well as the Grade III Bringing Up The Rear Classic earlier in 2005, and as the year winds down, she’s looking to rebound from a flat performance in a listed Utah stakes last out, where she set the pace and then faded.  Her preference clearly is to be up near the front, and try to hang in late.  Since the Grade III win in New Mexico, every other race has been a bit of a clunker, including that last in Utah.  After throwing in a bad race in that cycle, she usually rebounds with a win and/or a solid figure, and she’s at that point in her current form cycle.  If she’s not on the lead, she’ll be up close to it, and the implication among this field is that she won’t be alone this time.  How she rates, and how well, could hold the key to her fortunes here.  (It must be added that her dam has an impeccable record; her half-borther Confederacy(IRE) has done well to make a name for himself among three-year-olds.)

Barb’s Petit Marron [Green Desert-Broro Again, by A.P. Indy] makes her open-company stakes debut here for the super14 stables, but is she ready?  She’s had a very good three-year-old campaign, with seven wins this year, but most of those wins came at the starter level, and while her speed figures are solid, and looking to get even better, they’re not quite on a par with some of the strongest fillies and mares in the field.  Her only effort in stakes company, a restricted Smackdown event in July, left her well up the track in twelfth, which won’t bolster confidence.  She’ll be coming late, and her numbers are evolving higher, plus her allowance win three back was truly sparkling, a six-plus length win at today’s distance on a good track.  Without an off-track, her chances diminish a bit more.  But at 4, she certainly should be one to watch.

Moon Of Cairo [Deputy Minister x Polar Falcon] has bloomed into a stakes-winning four-year-old for zipchippy, with a pair of stakes wins at a mile-and-three-sixteenths this season.  Recent efforts in her first forays into graded stakes level activity were a little less than inspiring (a poor, grass-loathing tenth in the Grade I Yellow Submarine two back, and a fading sixth in the Grade III County BB Handicap last out), but here, back at the listed level she has begun to enjoy in ’05, she should be more at home.  She’ll sit back in mid-pack and be patient, a tactic most successful in Wisconsin three back, when she surged past the graded-placed Act Of God en route to an impressive win.  The added sixteenth from her last should only help her late kick, and she’s bound to love ten furlongs on dirt far more than she did this distance on the lawn.  Her numbers need to be raised a notch to compete against the classy broads here, though.

Black Wood Nymph [Black Minnaloushe-In The Woods, by Woodman] operates out of the barn of ozzy, and also has bloomed this year, with four of her five career wins coming in 2005.  She’s a perfect 1-for-1 at the mile-and-a-quarter distance here, and she should be one of the main speeds in the race.  She wired them going a mile-and-a-half three back for her only stakes win, but she was loose on the lead throughout much of that, and the prospects of a repeat don’t seem too high.  Nevertheless, these long classic distances do appeal to her, and she’s rounding into form, though her figs need to improve a bit for a premium run. 

Kase Dismissed [Gone West x Nureyev] is a three-year-old who’s managed to capture six of her first thirteen starts. Trainer verdugote started her off ambitiously, with a stakes-winning debut race at 2, and she’s not really slowed down since.  She’s won four of her last six, including a pair of stakes, and makes her debut versus her elders in this spot.  She’ll like to close from well off the pace, and eked out a nose win two back by closing sharply at nine furlongs.  Four starts back, she won with more ease in a similar stakes race, but last out, she threw in a clunker going a sixteenth farther than this spot, so the added distance might make it a bit finicky for her to close out a similar effort.  Her numbers are now floating around 100, but she’ll need to move far forward off that fifth last out at ten-and-a-half panels.

Suzyjinsky [Danzig x Nijinsky] draws an outside post while representing snag, and she’s got back class in spades, following a just-about-Hall-of-Fame career in which she captured the 2002 Breeders Bowl Distaff, as well as two other Grade I races.  With four wins in 2005, she’s clearly still got “It”.  She’s still capable of throwing in a top-shelf speed figure (witness that 112 last year in California), and should let her opinions be known on the lead in this effort.  But even though her ’05 campaign has given her four wins, her numbers have signaled that she’s approaching the twilight years of her racing career.  She can pop a surprise mid-100 fig as needed, to be sure, but she hasn’t quite managed so far on the year.  Nevertheless, back class is always an important intangible to have, and you don’t win a BB race, and race to age 6 successfully without it.  She’s spotted well here, but there’s a lot of pace to contend with.

My selections:

1. Congressional
2. Kase Dismissed
3. Suzyjinsky
4. Moon Of Cairo
5. Black Wood Nymph
6. Barb’s Petit Marron

Good luck, happy racing, and Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!