Ab Fab vs. Everyone
All eyes may be on Kentucky this Saturday, but New York isn’t just waiting around for the Triple Crown to progress. The main event is the $400,000 G1 Gary Carter Handicap, a seven-furlong main track affair for older males, and it’s shaping up to be a dramatic one, with #1 sprinter Ab Fab dropping by to defend his crown.
The Dolphinman trainee was a star from go. The A.P. Indy son was a multiple graded route winner, but missed the Breeders’ Bowl and finished a lackluster eighteenth in the Bluegrass Derby. Though he’s kept his hand in the mile game (including a G1 placing over a wet track) since, it’s clear that he likes the sprint distances best. He’s won five graded stakes since this time last year and placed in several others on his way to the top of his division. A willing sort who will run from anywhere in the pack, he regularly pops 110+ speed ratings. S. Israel turned down a trip to Kentucky in order to climb aboard, and the BTB’s spy in the Dolphinman barn says they have no intention of being disappointed two Derby days in a row.
But maybe we should have sicced that spy on the track handicapper instead. The talk of the track this morning is Ab Fab’s co-favorite at 5/1. He’s a sturdy brown horse from the Ruffino barn, a Machiavellian son named Diabolical Prince. Is he, you ask, the #2 sprinter? Has he beaten Ab Fab before? No, and no. He’s ranked 128th in the older male sprint division. He hasn’t seen a graded stakes since last year’s edition of this race, where he finished twelfth and limped his way off the track and into a three-month holiday. But he is a G2 winner at this distance. He is a horse that tops 110 at his best and is running on a streak of three wins and place in four races, all with three-digit numbers. He’s a seven furlong specialist–and after Saturday, he may have the class rank to match.
Ohio resident Thebandit brings the first of several horses in this race who are knocking at the top twenty. Four-year-old Jumping Sal, by Dayjur, has won fully half of his twenty races–more than the other four foals of his stakes-winning dam, combined. He struggled a bit in the summer of his sophomore season, but found his footing in a pair of confidence-boosting allowances in the fall and went on a tear, winning five in a row, including a G2–beating Ab Fab–and a G3. Two cross-country trips caught up with him in the G1 The Billy and Jimmy Stakes and though he seemed recovered by race day, he ran poorly and finished eleventh. He stayed on after that race and has been training well, and gets the services of B. Dirks, who’s been enjoying a breakout year.
We’ll slide back down toward the inside now, post position #3, for the first of our speed horses: Miswaki son Rexton. Twenty-first in his class, Rexton last ran in the G1 KyH Elixir Sprint, where he set the fiercely contested pace into which Ab Fab closed for the win. His partner in crime that day, Diligence, is the #4 older male sprinter, a graded stakes star who came back to finish second by a nose in another G1–and was so fried by that Elixir pace that he ended up seventh there. Challengers take note! Though Rexton has never broken the 110 barrier, he’s knocked at the door several times. The only concern about that blazing speed is that he may beat himself: though he’s a listed stakes winner at this distance and beyond, he’s thrice struggled at it in rated company.
Like Jumping Sal’s connections, the Minnesotan contingent from Sauk Valley Farms ran in the Billy and Jimmy and then stayed on in New York for this, and I’ll take a moment to commiserate here: am I the only Midwesterner who has trouble speaking Yankee? Like Jumping Sal, they finished well back there with their entry, four-year-old blueblood Seeking to Rule. He was riding high off a wet-track win in the G3 Count Fingers Sprint, but his usual strong late kick never showed up. Wasn’t the distance, though: among his career highlights is a 112 speed rating earned while a late-charging second to Ab Fab in the G3 Narrowly Missed Stakes at 7.5 furlongs. It’s hard to find patterns in a career as consistently successful as his–nine wins and fifteen top three finishes in twenty-one starts, but it’s worth noting that he’s come back big after clunkers before.
But they didn’t all fumble in the Gary Carter, and New York fans are pleased as punch to see their beloved Pequin Cat stick around. This is the five-year-old’s second tour of the spring and summer circuit here. Last year, he won the Billy and Jimmy and finished a closing fourth in this race before going a bit off-form and eventually shipping out. He may be a bit behind that curve this year–he finished third in the B&J, though he closed eight lengths between third call and the finish and threaded through major traffic on his way there–but the word is the Quietly and Co. are planning continued success this time around. The strapping son of Tabasco Cat does like this surface and his best puts his nose near the front, but he’s a late closer–my favorite kind, but somewhat at the mercy of the pace.
Acedo makes his graded stakes debut in this fine company–nothing like diving in head first! The Pleasantly Perfect son spent a few weeks here last year, placing upstate and then winning a mile allowance over the big track. He’s a multiple listed stakes winner who’s been posting consistently solid numbers recently and has enough early speed to stalk the pace if and when that seems like the thing to do. With Rexton thus far the lone front-runner, that kind of tactical speed may prove critical–if he can carry it up the step in class.
Machiavellian’s second son in the race, Grand Thievery, hails from the formidable Given Stables. The big brown horse has never won a graded stakes, but he’s been close enough to taste it since January of his sophomore year, when he dueled on the lead, stuck his nose in front, and somehow ended up second in the G3 Special Bid Stakes. He’s did variations of the same in two races early this past winter before clipping himself in a stumble at the start of the G2 Wicker Sofa and going on hiatus for a bit. Brought back a few weeks ago in allowance company, he set a free-wheeling pace but tired through the stretch and finished second. It’s not encouraging that the winner there struggled in his next start, but we can expect Grand Thievery to be much tighter this time out. Closers will find him a welcome addition to help keep Rexton honest on the lead: wire-to-wire fast is the only way he knows how to run.
I’m a sucker for Belong to Me, and I sure wouldn’t kick Cobra Kai Racing Stables entry Mambo Me out of my barn. The four-year-old has started nineteen times, hitting the board thirteen, and last time out was the front-running victor of the listed Project En La Deer Stakes. He’s put together five 100+ speed ratings back to back (to back…) and we can’t blame his connections for thinking it’s time to test the graded stakes waters again. This is a bit of a deep spot for him, though, given his front-running tendencies and apparent preference for the shorter sprints; he’ll have to step it up to go eye-to-eye with Rexton and Grand Thievery.
The sim gods are fickle dieties, and nothing gets their attention like explicit confidence. Take, for example, the offspring of Storm Cat and a turf sprinting graded stakes-placed Mt. Livermore mare. Name him Grass Cat. Whaddya get? An entry in Saturday’s big race…on the dirt. Yes, he was third over the turf in G1 company last out. But that’s not funny. Okay? Okay. That was his second graded stakes try; previously he’d been a steady-running fifth in the G2 Florida BB Sprint Championship II on the main track. And he’s posted his best number, a 107, with mud in his fce. The stakes winner may be a step slower than some others in here, but his stalking style puts him in good position if he can find that extra gear.
Seven-year-old Unprecedented, a Hansel son from Lone Star Racing, is trying on a new hat at this late stage in his career. Only two of his starts–the first and third–have been at the sprint distances, both for former owner Starbound. He won the first, was second in the other, but sandwiched in between, picked up a victory in the G3 Pea Patch Juvenile at a mile, and that was all she wrote for his next thirty-odd starts, a tour of Derby preps and star-studded routes. He acquitted himself well, year in and year out, but he seems to be slowing down a little bit as of late, failing to show much kick in even allowance company. So his connections are giving their grand old man a change, dropping him back to the sprint distances to see if that freshens him up. And me, I haven’t got a clue–but with two seven-year-olds in my own stables and no plans to give them up, I’ll be pulling for him.
What’s in a name? Barny the Drunk is hoping not much: seven furlongs can be a long way if you can’t run in a straight line. But his connections aren’t too worried; the six-year-old by Straight Strike has found his way to the winner’s circle nine times before, once in stakes company. He made his graded bow last out in the KyH Elixir Sprint and acquitted himself decently at long odds, picking up some pieces late for sixth. Not too shabby for a horse you could’ve claimed for $25,000 once upon a time. His numbers don’t consistently match up, but if he’s that undaunted by the big guns, a top race may get him a check.
20/1 shot Act of Brave will be hoping to reclaim some old glory on Saturday. A G1 winner at two, he was second by a rapidly diminishing head in the Breeders Bowl Juvenile, and recovered from an unsuccessful Triple Crown campaign to make some noise through the summer and fall. His four-year-old season saw some regression and the start of this year–in route races–wasn’t much better, but his Irish connections dropped him back to the sprint distances for an allowance in Jersey earlier this month and he ran big to win. Now it’s back in with the class horses and if you think he can run back to that seven furlong G2 Pinto Handicap in ’05 where he posted a 112, this millionaire has to look mighty appealing at long odds of 20/1.
And longer odds–78/1–round out the field with a gutsy entry in three-year-old Aljander(Ire), a son of young stallion Noverre. A turf specialist at two, he won the G3 Goats That Faint Juvenile, but switched to the dirt in December and topped his best speed rating by 10 to win a listed stakes. Since then, he’s only come close to the winner’s circle once, that when he finished second in Mississippi, and while he looks like a very nice young horse…if he can’t beat his own age group, I’m reluctant to believe he can beat out the best of his elders.