{"id":3891,"date":"2007-03-30T21:12:44","date_gmt":"2007-03-30T21:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blacktypebugler.com\/?p=3891"},"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=3891","title":{"rendered":"Svengali Me. Baby!"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Scene: a writer staring at a blank page. It has been a few weeks and an illness he wishes on no one since he last decided to try his hand at writing for his colleagues in the Black Type Bugler, and he chose what he believes he likes to choose to do, and that is pick a listed race or two that focuses on stakes horses from all over who don’t often get the spotlight. He selected a requested race in the game’s Forum section scheduled for New South Wales…and he hasn’t a clue as to a unique angle with which to draw the gentle reader in. He begins to type.<\/I>]

Seven horses face the starter in the $75,000 Svengali Me Handicap<\/B><\/FONT><\/I>, a mile-and-a-sixteenth turf test over a firm course at New South Wales this week.

Writer: No, no, no! That’s the race, but that’s just the main fact. Someone reads this, they’ll speed over to the comics to see what happened to Mary Worth today.<\/EM><\/B> [The writer backspaces furiously, and types again.<\/I>]

Last year, three graded fillies and mares were among the assembled masses in this distaff turf test, won by Grade I winner Whispering Sound. This year an esteemed field looks to make a similar run at history. They’re led by Psyche<\/STRONG>, who looks to return to her winning ways after a lackluster effort versus graded opponents, and by Goodbye Kiss<\/STRONG>, who has had similar luck against the higher-ups in the division but has still managed to win three of her last five stakes tries. WHICH ONE OF THESE FILLIES WILL REIGN AS THE QUEEN OF THE MOUNTAIN?

Writer: Oops…caps lock got stuck…better fix that.<\/EM><\/B> [The writer backspaces, then pauses:<\/I>] Eh, I’m not too happy with this, either. Why do they make these things so bloody difficult? There’s gotta be a better…<\/EM><\/B> [The writer backspaces the whole thing, and tries again, again.<\/I>]

Have you ever thought of selling Blamway as a legitimate business enterprise? You could be making

Writer<\/EM><\/B> [shaking his head<\/I>]: OK, OK, now you’re just being silly. Maybe if I just cut to the chase and looked at the horses, a creative and wholly original angle will come to me. <\/STRONG><\/EM>[The writer backspaces, again, and decides to just break down the entries in the $75,000 Svengali Me Handicap<\/B>. He mutters to himself.<\/I>] Where is New South Wales, anyway?<\/EM><\/STRONG>

Pet My Kitty<\/B> [Forestry-Fat Free Smock(GB), by Silver Rainbow(GB), trained by alphabetso<\/I><\/FONT><\/B>] did not find her stakes debut to her liking, finishing fourth, of four, beaten over twenty-five lengths. She has four wins over her career, still has one more allowance condition to complete, but is trying again in stakes company. Life is going to be tough for her at this level without having tossed out a speed figure higher than a 93. The cut-back in distance is certainly going to be of some help to her, but her best speed figure only has one filly here beat, and that’s the upcoming longest shot on the board. She much prefers to sit in mid-pack and wait, but the front-runners here are very good at what they do, and so she’s going to need some unexpected help to try and break the spirit of the leaders halfway in. She’s not a bad filly at all, she’s quite talented, but remember the part about still being eligible for a NW4x? Maybe that’s her next step, and her best chance down the line. There’s only seven here, so a minor share isn’t an insane thought, but not much more than that.

Writer: I hate to be such a negative Nancy about it, because I like the pedigree, too. Maybe the next one will perk my spirits.<\/I><\/B>

Goodbye Kiss<\/B> [Sadler’s Wells x Blushing Groom, trained by donut<\/STRONG><\/I>] is on the cusp of a milestone, as the winner’s share of the purse here will make her a millionaire. She’s certainly got back class to spare, as a Grade I-placed filly at 2. Recently, she’s not worked so hard at being tops in her class, and has focused more on excelling against a more general class of stakes fillies. To that end, she’s won three of her last five starts. Her preferred mode of attack is to just sit off the lead, but her best results with that have come at shorter distances, at a mile or slightly less. Her speed figures have largely been holding around the low triple digits, but in start #36, while she can still churn out some strong performances and numbers, she’s in the twilight years at the age of 6, and the distance, while still inside her range, might not be as ideal as it once was. Her recent 104 figures cannot be ignored, but turning back to the distances of those starts, sprinting at seven or seven-and-a-half furlongs, could produce stronger possibilities than it’s possible to see in this spot.

Writer: Geez…last thing I want to seem like is a hater of the aged, even of one with impeccable recent form. I’m not making any friends so far, am I? Moving on…<\/I><\/B>

Standing Water<\/B> [Singingintherain x Innkeeper, trained by sherman13<\/B><\/FONT><\/I>]. Let’s be utterly fair, dispassionate and impartial about the facts. She is a six-year-old mare with over $50,000 in career earnings. In thirty-one outings, she has finished second on five occasions, and has finished third a total four times. And her best speed figure occurred in October of 2004. And the fact that she has only a maiden win to her credit, or the idea that her career-best speed figure was an 81, has absolutely no bearing on her chances against a field comprised of a number of distaffers with stakes wins, graded placements and\/or strong recent form. She has exhibited a tendency to sit in the middle or closer to the rear of the leaders, and she did win her maiden race by over eight lengths in the outing before her career-high speed figures. Marathon routes are generally an option previous trainers have not explored in regards to her, with the maiden win coming at a mile-and-three-quarters in convincing fashion. There is hope for this filly on the grass, perhaps. With recent numbers in two dirt stakes in the 60s and her odds resembling the national debt, though, there’s just no hope for her here<\/I>.

Writer: I tried. Honest I did. But there’s a limit to everything. Guess the Eclipse committee isn’t going to be called on my behalf in the near millennium…let’s see what’s next.<\/B><\/I>

Psyche<\/B> [Belong To Me-Corparate Slew, by Seattle Slew, trained by kjracing<\/I><\/B>] is a strong 3-1 value as the morning-line second choice. Nine wins in seventeen starts, four stakes wins, Grade II-placed, in the prime of her career at 4…what’s not to appreciate here? Her speed figures, maybe, because while they themselves are quite solid, Goodbye Kiss<\/B> has higher ones in her recent memory, while Psyche<\/B> has just two races where she broke 100, most recently in her 2007 debut. It’s a numbers game between the two favorites here, and she does not have an edge there. But her form coming in is still exceptional, having won two in a row up until a graded belly flop last time. She has tactical speed to work with, and should hang close on the front end here.\u00a0 It’s a tough field of gamers, but she’s used to this level enough to have held her own versus the major players.\u00a0 And when she wins, she tends to win big, with just three of her nine career victories coming by margins of a length or less.\u00a0 The distance does suit her better than the favorite, and her last three outings averaged together gives her more sparkling speed numbers than the favorite; the value is tough to ignore here.

Writer: Geez…hope her trainer has a squeegee to get all\u00a0my slobber off her.\u00a0 I should save the sucking-up for\u00a0when I want more credits for my work.\u00a0 Let’s do it again…<\/EM><\/STRONG>\u00a0

Kisses For Ashley<\/STRONG> [Awesome Again-Seattle Rallying, by Seattle Slew, trained by queenab<\/EM><\/STRONG>] is the rookie of the field, marking her stakes debut in her eleventh outing.\u00a0 She was efficient in clearing her allowance hurdles, with five wins in her first nine starts leaving her with few allowance options except the difficult ones, ones with “4n” and “4y” in them.\u00a0 She’s well-bred, and it must be said that her success on grass comes from her family blood; she’s a half to stakes winner Rally Cat, out of a mare who won nine times on grass and earned half a million.\u00a0 The sky should be the limit for this filly, and I’d feel much more confident about it if her last race wasn’t such a clunker (a 79, following numbers near 100, when fourth last out).\u00a0 It’s not her fault; ten furlongs is very much not in her range, it was a tough open allowance, and the top three finishers were either graded-placed or stakes-placed.\u00a0 The turn-back figures to help her out, and the field has room for a burgeoning star from strong lineage.\u00a0 I just question whether she’s ready, given that she did noticeably struggle with a field more used to running in stakes company.\u00a0 She does like to make a solid late run, and this is a race with more tactical speed than out-and-out flashiness, so if she can kick well late, she should be in for a share.\u00a0 Regardless, down the line this filly might run fully to her esteemed blue-blooded\u00a0lineage.\u00a0

<\/FONT>Writer: “Burgeoning”?\u00a0 “Lineage”?\u00a0 Swallow a thesaurus much?\u00a0 Gotta stop paying so much for those “word power” books-on-tape…I can do better.

<\/EM>Down On Me<\/STRONG> [Mt. Livermore x Unfuwain, trained by zewango3<\/EM><\/STRONG>] has been doing alright for herself, earning her keep in bits and pieces largely through running against smaller stakes fields and hoping to benefit from the luck of the draw.\u00a0 It’s not like she’s a poseur, as she does have some very solid abilities running with this level.\u00a0 Fourth in Montana last out, third in California two back, and with numbers in the mid-90s both times, she seems rather close to finally crossing a new threshold of suceess, and maybe shipping back to the European\/Pacific Division could give her abilities a boost.\u00a0 The last race, over a wet Big Sky course, was actually quite decent, and she should benefit with a return to firmness here.\u00a0 She prefers a late run as well, but the question is whether there’s enough ground here to make an impact.\u00a0 She’s yet to go beyond a mile, so that route remains open, so to speak, but her numbers aren’t quite holding up here, with no triple-digit speed figure to speak of as yet.\u00a0 The field is a rather tough one, and she’s going to have to benefit from the switch in surface quality by at least\u00a0five points to hold her own with the chalk.

Writer: That one wasn’t too bad, just a little bit gloomy.\u00a0 A geographic nightmare to spell, too…thank God for spell-checking…let’s finish this off before they send a search party out for the article.<\/EM><\/STRONG>

Kawayi Jun<\/STRONG> [War Chant x Nureyev, trained by donut<\/EM><\/STRONG>] is the other half of the entry for this barn, and is not necessarily meant as the “stronger” half per se, but this filly is well-bred enough to hold her own.\u00a0 She’s lightly-raced, with this being only her thirteenth start, and she’s been brought up through the ranks slowly, with this being only her third stakes race (and those were spaced out nicely: one came last June, the other last month).\u00a0 She seems to revel at this distance, winning last out narrowly, and flying under the radar as she did in Australia eight weeks ago in her last start, it was just Victoria’s secret, one would guess.\u00a0 She’s got speed as well, which figures very strongly here; there’s not a lot of pace, but there’s some good tactical speed to keep things very interesting.\u00a0 Her appearance here smacks of being a rabbit for her stable mate, but every little bit helps, and she’s got enough energy here to hang around on her own in the stretch.\u00a0 The numbers are pretty fair on her own, and she should guarantee an honest pace for most of the others; a handicapper might be drooling at a potential return to turf races that are just a smidge shorter, however.\u00a0 She’s fresh enough to\u00a0maybe hang around long enough for a share at the end.

Writer: Good thing I like puns; I’m not responsible for what happens after they leave my brain, however.\u00a0 Anyway, it’s over…let’s pick ’em:<\/STRONG><\/EM>

The selections:

<\/FONT>1. Psyche
2. Goodbye Kiss
3. Kisses For Ashley
<\/STRONG>
Lood guck to all, and rappy hacing!

Writer: Doggone it!\u00a0 Darn stupid fat fingers!<\/STRONG><\/EM>\u00a0 [He backspaces furiously, as we fade to black.<\/EM>]<\/FONT><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is Psyche Fragile? Is Goodbye Kiss Tender Enough? Why Am I Punning?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"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-3891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891","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\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}