A (nearly) Daily Record Setter…Stuck On Cards

It was February of last year when I bred a horse for the sole purpose of over racing it.  My goal was to see how many days in a row I could race it before it required some rest.  So it was a cold and snowy night that in the manger a horse by the name of Stuck On Cards were born.  No angels were present.  Kings failed to show up and delivery worthy gifts.  No stars shined in the sky (well, it was a snowy night).

On 2/24/15 the horse would start a journey of records setting by finishing second in his first race.  This non-star was victim to my opting to use sire cards to breed him and the G-cards resulted in a flop of Keep the Faith x Craigsteel x Siouperheart.   This first race start would be the launching pad for Stuck to run 16 consecutive days before requiring a break.  During this stint, he had his hottest results of his career finishing second twice and his only win after that during the first three days of March.

Anyone desiring to check on this unenergetic runner can find him at this link:  http://www.derbyfever.com/onehorse_inline.asp?horse=11500065205

If my counting is correct, he’s raced 85 times during 2015 and I was hoping to get in 100 races during the year.   But his late February start hampered those efforts.  He concluded the year with a 1-3-8 record.  As a side note, that is still his record today.

Racing with daily frequency does take a toll on the horses and after his 16 consecutive days of running, I eased him off to racing every two to three days.   Speeds continued to drop and conversely, odds soared upward.  On 4/12/15, he went off at odds of  297/1, the first time over 100/1.   5/28/15 was the last time he had odds below 10/1.

Stuck has had a couple of oddities with his speeds in his career.  On 8/26/15, he struck a speed of 58 which followed five straight races of speeds below 30 and he finished third paying $10.00 for show in an 8-horse field.  Speeds dropped immediately after that race.

Another spurt came after running 25 consecutive races with speeds below 20 when he knocked off a 50 on 6/5/16 finishing 4th in a five horse field.  Speeds immediately tanked again after that race.

A little over a month later, on 7/13/16, a career best speed of 61 was launched and the one better who had a win ticket had to be happy with odds at 9999/1 when he was running second in the field of 10.  But it was not to be as he finished 30 strides back, but finished a surprising mid-field fifth.

Since 3/26/16 Stuck on Cards has not gone off at odds below 100/1.

This horse has set some records in his career, such as the 16 consecutive race streak.   As of this writing, he’s posted speeds below 10 in 24 of his lifetime starts, this may be a record too.

His first 141 races were all in HOT races, a definite record.  It wasn’t until race 142 that he made his only start in a non-HOT race.  And what would that be?  It would be on 8/6/16 when Stuck on Cards would represent Comedy Central (the last day of the residencies existence) in a 2 mile dirt race in the Equinics.  Yes, Comedy Central had a sense of humor right to the end.   The odds were so incredibly high that the program published him as “SCR”.   I feared he was scratched and consulted the game wizard Mike who looked into and stated that the system considered that he had odds consistent with a horse that may have been scratched from the race.  Another sim record…odds to high to compute.   The official results would have him at 9999/1, but it would have been interesting to see the tote board if he won.

The Equinics results looks like another record.  The 2 mile distance gave him lots of room to lose.  If watching the 3D viewer, and comparing to the winner, Stuck on Cards was just entering the stretch as the winner crossed the line.   The old viewer placed him 193 lengths behind the winner, most likely a game record as well as an Equinic record for biggest defeat.  (and a friend of mine estimated him to be a good two minutes behind the winner and estimated the lengths back to be 195…pretty damn accurate!)   To be honest, I was curious as to whether the field would lap him.

So, in this big G1 race a speed of 2 was recorded.  How much wear and tear did Stuck have from this race?  Only way to find out was to race him again, so three days later he raced again in another 2 mile race (back to HOT races) and he was well beat again, but the speed increased 500% to a solid 10.

As of this writing, he now has 146 races under his belt and has not had a top-three finish in all of 2016.  His most recent start was today, 8/16/16 where he set a career low record speed of 0.559, his first time below a speed of 1.

Stuck on Cards has had only one significant rest in his career and that was for 6-weeks when I inadvertently sent him to the farm.   I’m trying to get him to 100 races this year and he has 61 so far but that farming snafu on my part will make it tight as to whether or not he makes it.  But not to worry, I do have another horse I’m racing in a similar manner that has 71 starts but seems to need longer rests between starts which may make the target a task to achieve.

In any event, Stuck on Cards breaks and sets a new record with each race he runs.  He now has 146 races and who knows how far this can reach to.  Maybe 1,000 by the time this four year old turns 12?    He may not be destined for the Hall of Fame, but I hear the Hall of Shame has lots of room and this record setter will be proud to bring his records there.