{"id":3082,"date":"2006-10-06T11:01:45","date_gmt":"2006-10-06T11:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blacktypebugler.com\/?p=3082"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"oldbtb_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/?p=3082","title":{"rendered":"Can we be this good?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ITCH
<\/STRONG>
This reporter\u2019s attendance at the fine Utah oval for anniversary week 3000 may not be as sinister as the time they found the Mountaineer fan in the Marshall stands, it does have an ulterior motive.

Consider it a bit of a “scouting” mission.

Yes, this humble reporter has a good grass horse, too, MAOL DHOMHNAIGH(IRE) in the Itch2 stable. Maybe the best horse we ever had.

And, maybe not as good as many of them in this, the Grade II Utah BB Mile.

This is a Grade 2, which would be a big jump up for our boy. Perhaps reviewing these contenders might teach us a lesson or two on what it takes to compete at this class level, surface and distance in the Sim.

As always, we will review the contenders in the order they qualified, thus to represent the “race within a race” that takes place before 6 p.m. Wednesday every week.

At the tippy top, with a fantastic total of 352 stakes points (thus towering over his competition in the accomplishment category) is urko\u2019s URKO\u2019S DANZIG<\/STRONG>. This chestnut 5yo son of Danzig is a potent combination of the turf ability of Danzig and the speed of Storm Cat. Routinely brilliant, the No. 6 Urko\u2019s Danzig has held his form now for three years, a tremendous accomplishment considering the volatility of even the best horses in the Sim. It also says a lot for Urko, who has managed this horse brilliantly. After running big speed figures through his 4yo season mostly in allowance competition, Urko eased him on up the class ladder and had him ready for the big boys in graded stakes by the end of the year. Did he ever! In 10 starts in Grade 3 or better, Urko\u2019s Danzig has four wins, including the sweetest icing on the cake last out, his first Grade I win in the Canada Mile. If he runs right back to that race, it\u2019s another Grade 2 in the pocket of this top-class horse.

It\u2019s a very familiar name at the second spot in the standings. Who has not seen the name “Xtremely” time and again in the entries? This one is XTREMELY A FAN<\/STRONG>, for the very capable jpcrazy barn. With $2.9 million-plus in earnings, this 5yo son of A.P. Indy is the indisputable star of his barn, but he\u2019s not the only runner, as evidenced by jpcrazy\u2019s strong 18 percent career strike rate, with 47 wins of 268 starts. Bred impeccably for the turf, with Kris S. and Nijinsky II as the DS and DDS, Extremely is one of those deep stretch kickers whose move often has proved lethal against the Sim\u2019s best turfers. He has won a Grade I in each of the past two years: the All Comers Stakes in April at a mile, and the Canada Mile last year. It was after a third-place finish in last year\u2019s Breeder\u2019s Bowl that the notorious fire sale of the Xtremely horses took place and Simmers lined up at the claim box. Jpcrazy hit the lottery, and now has a top horse. Xtremely a Fan won this race a year ago, and he is very hard to resist at this flat mile distance. His form has been a little spotty of late, and jpcrazy has to be hoping that allowance score last out with the 102 speed fig means he\u2019s back to himself.

CANNON IN D<\/STRONG> is next for the all-time great Sim barn cream. This outfit has won an unbelievable 283 races in this great game, closing in on the stratospheric 300-win mark. A great record means great horses, and Cannon In D has done nothing to tarnish cream\u2019s lofty reputation. He\u2019s been a fair win machine, finishing first in no fewer than 11 of his 27 career races. Four starts ago,however, he was 11-23. Something has gone wrong in his last four. After winning three straight earlier this year, Cannon In D\u2019s form has taken an uncharacteric nose dive in the last four, in which he\u2019s finished 14th, fourth, 10th and sixth, and only cracked the 100 speed fig once. He won his Grade I five races ago and it is like it took something out of the boy. Cream is keeping the faith and sending him back out same class, same distance. It\u2019s hard to doubt a guy who\u2019s forgotten more about Sim racing than we\u2019ll ever know.

SLEW CAN<\/STRONG> for the gsrprize barn is next. This is another regally-bred turfer who\u2019s accomplished a lot in his career, as evidenced by his No. 28 ranking in the classic turf division. He also is yet another demonstration of how frustrating the Sim can be. Until April of this year, Slew Can was a multiple Grade 3 winner, just below the top echelon of Sim class. That ended in April, when he won the Grade I Dr. Reuben Garr Memorial, stamping himself a Grade I winner. Guess what? He ain\u2019t running so good since then. His spotty current form is immediately evident because there are no triple-digit speed figs on his front page now. The last five are all in the 90s, and all out of the exacta. It is like winning the Grade I took something out of him, but it could well be just a temporary trance. He could wake up anytime, like he did earlier this year in the Grade 3 Tally Ho Mile, matching his career-best speed fig of 111 off four straight in the 90s. This is a Grade I runner whose best shot is good enough to run with anybody. It\u2019s a handicapper\u2019s speculation whether or not he\u2019ll fire it here Saturday.

COLONIAL CHILDERS<\/STRONG> for lopo87 is next. This is another one with a gaudy win record, pocketing 10 races from 37 starts for a healthy $854,000. It must be a good feeling to have a horse well on his way to $1 million in earnings, and that\u2019s what Lopo87 has got in this 5yo son of Aptitude. What an interesting story this guy is. Beginning his career on dirt, he was going nowhere fast. He was having a hard time topping an 80 speed fig well into his 3yo season, when Lobo picked him up for a $7,500 tag. Unable to come close to hitting the board on dirt in allowance competition, lopo took a shot and switched him to turf. Eureka! Well, maybe not Eureka, because he didn\u2019t start to excel right away. Lobo tried turf marathons at first, but Colonial Childers didn\u2019t become the graded stakes horse he is now until shorted to classic distances on the lawn. Three races ago, he hit the pinnacle when winning a Grade I, the Ky Horsemen Moonshine Mile. Taking a $7,500 claimer all the way to winning a Grade I is a dream for a Simmer, and lopo87 has lived it with Colonial Childers.

We find the likely pacesetter in sixth-place qualifier DUEX BLOON(IRE)<\/STRONG> from the mofofarms stable. This son of the Ela-Mana-Mou sire Double Trigger has made the lead at the first call in six of his last 10 races. That includes the Grade I Ky Horseman Moonshine Mile, when he was caught for all the money by Colonial Childers. That was a big race for Duex Bloon, most of whose stakes appearances have been of the non-graded variety. Both times he\u2019s tried the graded toughies, though, he\u2019s hit the board. It looks like he will get a head start on the ones who have more stakes points than him, and we all know that a pace edge often trumps a class edge. Let him get an easy lead, and he\u2019ll be hard to keep off the board. Whatever happens, this is another one who is a great claim. Mofofarms took him for the high tag of $100,000 in his second career start as a 2yo, and it\u2019s paid off handsomely. This 14-time winner is now the undisputed star of the barn.

The career record for JACQUES<\/STRONG> for the dimitri outfit screams class. That\u2019s $2.7 million in earnings in 37 starts for this 5yo son of Danehill. The next question is how could a horse who has won that much be clear down here in qualifying points? He must have made a lot of that hay when he was younger. Or, he might have won one of the richest turf race in all of Sim land, the Grade I Sand Castle Free Duty in March of 2005, when he beat Xtremely a Fan to the wire. That\u2019s his career highlight for sure. Since then, something has gone bad with this top-class horse. He\u2019s having a bad time this year, failing to win any of his seven starts and missing the board five times. Making matters worse is the fact that a mile never was his best distance. He comes from way out of it going longer, and it\u2019s a tall task to get him revved up into contention at only eight furlongs. This looks like a tough spot for a very good horse. (Now watch him go.)

It turns out cream is not the only Sim legend in this race. In the eighth spot we have GOLD INFERNO<\/STRONG> for the great correction. Correction is just unbelievable, having won 275 races in only 990 career starts. That\u2019s a 28 percent career strike rate since they started playing this great game. What a great feeling it must be to say to yourself, ” I have been on a hot streak my whole life.” This barn is still loaded with talent, with no fewer than six runners with more than $175,000 in career earnings. With a victory here, Gold Inferno could become the leading earner in the barn, which is saying something. We couldn\u2019t blame Sim handicappers who might say, “This is correction\u2019s horse. The bet is obvious.” This horse is a downtown closer who, should he appear in the race viewer at any point in the stretch, has a chance to win.<\/P>

Elnop’s GHETTO MUPPET(IRE)<\/STRONG> is next. First off, cool name. This 3yo son of Rock of Gibraltar, out of Elnop’s Grade E Zabeel mare Stop Nop and Roll, was a holy terror on the racetrack as a 2yo. He won four stakes, one of them a Grade 3, all on turf. Two subpar races in his first two runs as a 3yo, including a distancing on the dirt in a Grade 3, threw up a red flag, but that has since been taken back down. Four races ago, Ghetto Muppet ran the fastest race of his life, 107, in winning a non-graded stake this distance, then was second in a Grade 3 again at the same distance two back. Both of those races were restricted to 3yo only,however, and Ghetto Muppet meets his elders for only the second time. The first time was not a fair test, as it was over a good track going a furlong farther. Now it’s against very tough Grade 2 older horses, so we’ll see how tough this young one is.<\/P>

Wonder4’s WONDERBOY DA VINCI(IRE<\/STRONG>) comes into this fresh off a big score in the Grade 3 Violin Mile over in France this distance. Anything but a sincere regression off that race makes him a very legit contender in here. This brilliantly bred 4yo son of Theatrical was having a spotty 2006 season until that big score last out, having raced only seven times this year, and off the board in four straight. A big race here, however, and all those troubles will seem far in the rearview mirror to Wonder4. This horse looks to be close to the pace early, as opposed to some of the other strong contenders in here who will be launching from far back.<\/P>

Now we’re starting to get down into the lower-echelon entries who do not seem to have enough stakes points to compete with the big boys in this race.<\/P>

Azuma 25’s A.P. JACK CB<\/STRONG> is in poor current form, having been off the board with slow speed figures in three straight. He would need a dramatic form reversal here, and a tough Grade 2 against very good horses seems an unlikely spot for such a thing. The horse will break slowly and we do not see him firing on Saturday. (Now watch him go!)<\/P>

POLISH PROVERB<\/STRONG> for timjbehr takes a big leap in class, all the way up to Grade 2 off restricted allowance races. He does have some triple digit speed figs which would seem to suggest possible contention, but this boy has been off the board in his only two non-graded stake tries, let alone a Grade 2. Timjbehr must have an ace up his sleeve with this horse we don’t know about it, because he seems unlikely on the face of it.<\/P>

LAZY HOSS<\/STRONG> for vermacht is dismissed as a hopeless longshot in here, having nowhere near the class or speed figs to deal with these heavy heads. He’s far, far more likely to be last than first. I am not saying he’s lazy, I’m saying he is slow.<\/P>

STARK HONOR<\/STRONG> for nwrc2 qualifies even below Lazy Hoss. A 3yo, he hasn’t even been running so much as 90 speed figs. No way.<\/P>

GOOD LUCK EVERYBODY!!!!<\/STRONG>


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Plimpton wannabe scouts Utah turf stars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"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":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3082","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\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}