‘Mambo’ May Enjoy Easy Stroll in Turf Affair
One of the oldest races in our venerable game, the Grade I Breeders Bowl Game, at one mile on the grass for turf distaffers, would ordinarily be worthy of featured-race status. On New Yorker Day, however, it’s race number nine on a star-studded card. The first-ever winner of the BB Game, Kid Baby, hit pay dirt way back in Week #327, going wire to wire to take the then-listed event by two lengths.
The race hit it big in 2001, when it was won by the prodigious Seriously Double, who won the then-Grade III event as the 7/2 favorite in speedy time. A true warhorse, Seriously Double won 26 of 74 career starts, amassed nearly $5 million in earnings, and won over $1 million on each surface. The local favorite won six graded stakes races here in New York during an illustrious career!
Other greats to win the BB Game include Bella Figura, a winner of $2.5 million lifetime who took the 2005 renewal by a nose with a furious late kick, $2 million winner Back in Your Arms (2006), and 2008 victor Torch the Flame, who had finished third the year before in the G1 Breeders Bowl Mile against males.
It was on the backs of those strong mares – and a $400,000 purse – that this race was carried to Grade I status in 2009. Par for this event as a Grade I is 108.
A field of only six goes to the post in a field lacking much Grade I class.
#1 Xmas Cry 4-1 (Street Cry) is a win machine – 7-for-12 on the grass, and 9-for-16 lifetime – but she’s never won a graded stakes race. The four year-old ran well in the G3 Board Game Distaff in Texas last month, finishing second with a 109 SP, though that was a very weak renewal to say the least… a seven-horse field with not a single graded victory between them. Now she dips her toe into Grade I waters, and does it at a distance at which she’s never beaten older rivals. She has a couple speed figures that would compete here (110 SP in a listed stakes win at 1 1/16m, for instance), but she’s really in a whole new world against these.
#2 Twice As Long 3/2, another daughter of Kingmambo, has 15 turf wins but just $688k to show for them. She blew away a G3 field in the Sergio Garcia in Italy last October – her only graded win – and comes into this race off two up-close finishes in G3 company at a mile. A closer who likes to pounce from mid-flight, this mare seems to have a preference for 1 1/16 miles, the distance at which she has run four of her six 110+ speed figures. While only a Grade III winner, she does seem fast enough to pull this off… but does she get enough pace today?
#3 Madcap Bandita 6-1 (Awesome Again) came from dead last to finish second in the G3 Gallery Handicap on Middle Jewel Day in Maryland going 1 1/16m, and was second behind Twice as Long in the Sergio Garcia in October. Those races and others are part of this six year-old mare’s ten-race losing streak, and while she’s put in some decent performances during that stretch (three graded placings, including a SP of 112), she’s got a bit of seconditis and now goes up in class. That’s not a great combination. Was fourth here last year in the 2010 BB Game at nearly 16-1, beating three millionairesses in the process, and she certainly has some back class, having won two Grade II events on turf at 7.5 and 8.5 furlongs. But she’s not been picking her feet up fast enough of late and she may just be along for minor awards.
#4 Mambo de Calle 4-1 has won nine races from 19 turf tries lifetime but hasn’t landed in the winners’ circle since a blistering performance in the G1 The Last Woman at this distance last October in Eastern Kentucky. This five year-old Kingmambo mare knows of only one way to go – on the front end – and has the look of controlling speed, as I don’t think the likes of Tracking Number will be fast enough early to go with her. While a lot of her tries have been going longer – she’s twice graded placed at 1 1/8 miles, and has three wins at a mile and a quarter or longer, including a listed stakes win at 1 7/16m – the mile appears to be her best distance right now, having run speed figures of 111 in a G1 score and 108 in finishing 4th in Pennsylvania on Christmas Day. She’s coming out of a so-so second in listed company at 1 1/4m. Luring young gun star jockey R. Whisper (25% wins) certainly doesn’t hurt.
#5 Key to the Town 7/2 (Medaglia D’oro) has only ventured as far as a mile three times. The results have been impressive – she annexed a listed event in South Africa in January and followed it up with a win in the G3 Park Place Express in Ireland in March. After a weak beginning to her career on dirt, this four year-old has found a new lease on life on the lawn, where she has won six races in 11 months. Has the early speed to stalk, and while that seems to be her preferred style, she can beat good horses from far back as well. Versatile types like these are tough to discount, but she’s gone off form quite a bit since that win in Ireland. The grass tends to be softer overseas, and this filly who loved yielding turf the two times she caught it may like it that way… the U.S.-based efforts have been less impressive, if you discount a couple of efforts in North Carolina and Georgia, which I believe run their races in tobacco and peanut fields, respectively… tough to figure.
#6 Tracking Number 9-1 has never failed to hit the board in eight turf tries (5-1-2), and it’s no wonder that this four year-old Rahy filly took to the grass better than to the dirt. She blew through her allowance conditions from December to April, and then powered to victory in her stakes debut a month ago in Illinois, covering 1 1/4 miles in a swift 2:01 and 1/5. While she has been on the lead in some of those races, she seems to prefer to sit back a bit and close. May be first over to attack the likely pacesetter, Mambo de Calle. Fillies on the way up like this are attractive propositions, but a jump from one listed stakes race at an unrelated distance to Grade I company is very ambitious.
I’m going to tab Mambo de Calle to take this race. She is a Grade I winner (at the distance, no less) in a field that has major class concerns. She is probably also the controlling speed in a short field that has no other confirmed front runners. If you look past the try last time at 10 furlongs – not an optimal distance – she comes into this race in solid form. And I liked her last effort – she tried so hard, opened a lead, and was just caught at the end. Front-running efforts that sharpen speed tend to help horses down the line, especially on the turnback. All systems are ‘go.’ Key to the Town’s conversion to this distance has borne fruit thus far, and I think her tactical speed gives her an advantage over some of the others. May be a distance specialist in the making. Twice As Long will be rolling late but I don’t think she can get her motor started fast enough to get up at the one mile distance. She would be the choice if the race were, ahem, twice as long.