As I waited with the rest of the chilled railbirds, armed only with my binoculars and sheaf of loose notes in the first bit of false dawn, I began to study the record of my next assignment.\u00a0 I began to laugh out loud, just a little, but enough for the ‘neighbors’ to cast that quick concerned and a bit worried look in my direction.\u00a0 I had just finished my interview with Fernando about his colt who had just drawn the 6th post in the Bluegrass Derby, Alastor.\u00a0 I suddenly realized I was pretty Twilight-Zoned out here.\u00a0 There are a bunch of coincidences in the two post position 6s in the Derby and the Oaks.
Casa Bonita<\/I><\/B>, the number 6 post position draw in the Bluegrass Oaks, just like her counterpart in the Derby 6th slot, is bred to be a sprinter.\u00a0 The sire, Forestry, was a sprinting star with a 4.33 Dosage Index, as was dam-sire Capote (with a D.I. of 3.00). Though the back-end of Casa Bonita’s pedigree has some very versatile distance sires (Seattle Slew, Secretariat, His Majesty, Northern Dancer), she still, at least on paper, figured to be a sprinter based on her pedigree. Both Casa and Alastor are morning 12\/1 shots, and both are coming off of disappointing last starts. Oh yeah, and both love to close from well behind, whether in sprints or routes. But to the beginning:<\/P>
Owner\/trainer Ravencard<\/I> brought the precocious filly to her career debut in a mid-level MSW in Michigan at 5.5 furlongs.\u00a0 She broke cleanly and stayed with the pack, hovering in 9th, but only between 3 and 4 lengths back.\u00a0 Then, perennial meet-leading jockey B.F. Abman turned her loose, flicked the whip at her just a bit, and held on for dear life, as Casa Bonita found a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gear, passing horse after horse and crossing the finish line first\u00a0by less than a length, and at a hugely impressive 82 speed figure.\u00a0 The Ravencard camp knew they had a special girl here, and her next stop was Smackdown, the grudge match between the Delpenn and GR Simsters residencies.\u00a0 Reality reared its ugly head this time though, as 7\/1 shot Casa Bonita was shuffled all the way to the back, and between her competition and the traffic problems, wasn’t able to get the clear lane she needed to close. She finished a closing but well-beaten 10th, 7 lengths back.<\/P>
This was probably the defining moment for Casa Bonita in her career.\u00a0 Rather than set her back to allowance company, Ravencard found a 4 horse stakes race where Casa was the even-money favorite. Interestingly enough, that field got rather tougher as they got older.\u00a0 Two of the three others in that race are now stakes winners, and one of them in Graded company.\u00a0 But regardless, Casa Bonita fell back again towards the back of the pack, but hung around 5+ lengths back for about three quarters of the race, before being turned loose down the stretch.\u00a0 She took a 5 3\/4 length deficit near the top of the stretch and turned it into a 1 1\/4 length\u00a0win a couple of furlongs later.<\/P>
Next up, Ravencard decided to move his budding star up. Both in class and distance.\u00a0 Casa Bonita was going to run 8.5 furlongs in Grade II company, in a 12 horse field that included 8 current or future stakes winners, 3 of them Graded winners.\u00a0 This time she stayed her usual 5 lengths back, which put her in midpack, when she made her rush near the top of the stretch. She was flying, passing horses left and right, but just couldn’t get the winner, missing the highly regarded (and entry in the Oaks) Whip Smart by just half a length.\u00a0 And she bested her previous high speed figure, posting a 91.<\/P>
Her next two races were a bit of a disappointment for the Ravencard camp.\u00a0 She closed hard but couldn’t quite get the winner in a GR Simster owner-restricted stakes, before moving up to the Grade I Movieland Starlet, where the afterburners just didn’t happen, finishing a well-beaten 10th.<\/P>
Ever the optimist, Ravencard came right back to ungraded stakes company in Casa Bonita’s sophomore debut, winning handily and making up 9 lengths in the stretch.\u00a0 This led to another big moveup, back to Grade I company, in the Equinics’ Isaac Murphy, at 9 furlongs, representing the GR Simsters.\u00a0 This time, the Casa WAS home sweet home, as she finished a good closing run to get place money, losing by a bit more than a length to Zytown, another Oaks entrant.\u00a0 Another solid 2nd in the Grade II Florida Oaks, with a 97 speed figure, had Ravencard feeling pretty good, but Casa Bonita ran into some trouble when she faced the boys her last time out, running a very solid (in fact, a career best tying) 97,\u00a0but could only close to 6th.<\/P>
Still, she’s rested, she’s ready, and she’ll be flying down the stretch come Bluegrass Oaks day.\u00a0 Don’t count her out.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
And DOWN The Stretch She Comes….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}