Last week my plan was to get all 5 horses entered to start working towards completion of the 20 races required before being able to dump the poor performers in the auction.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>I did manage to get all five horses entered this week and ended up with two of them getting claimed.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>FIONA THE SECOND<\/B> was claimed after running 14th<\/SUP> in a $5,000 maiden claimer and RATE CROWN<\/B> was claimed after running 14th<\/SUP> in a $2,000 claimer.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Goodbye and good riddance!\u00a0 <\/SPAN>For the remaining three the results were about as bad as I expected:<\/P> \u00a0 LIGHT BOARD <\/B>(4 0-0-0 $0) was never a factor and finished 14th<\/SUP> with a 30 SP in a $2,000 maiden claimer at 9.5 furlongs on the dirt.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>I will try to enter him next time at a mile on dirt as those are the conditions where he earned his lifetime best SP of 61.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>This appears to be one that I need to dump into the auction as soon as my 20 races are completed.<\/P> \u00a0 JOURNALISM<\/B> (22 1-1-4 $11,369) finished 14th<\/SUP> as well in a $5,000 claimer over 9.5 furlongs with a blistering 56 SP.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>I need to drop him down to the $2,000 claimer level and look for a NW2L.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Another one probably destined for the auction.<\/P> \u00a0 ROYAL ALPHABET (IRE) <\/B>(36 3-2-4 $41,856) Ran fifth in a $3,500 claimer, which doesn\u2019t sound too bad, except there were only five horses entered!\u00a0 <\/SPAN>But still managed to earn 5 breeding points and $54 \u2013 my first purse winnings!\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Speed rating was a not too impressive 63.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>He was mid pack much of race, then absolutely died in the final corner, which shouldn\u2019t be surprising from a horse that hasn\u2019t run in almost two years.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Recently, his best speed figures have been on the dirt, so will try him on the dirt and hope for some improvement after his first race back after a long layoff.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>I\u2019m not anticipating much\u2026.<\/P> \u00a0 I also planned on trying to grab some cheap claimers who could hopefully run regularly and consistently earn some additional BP\u2019s.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>I did submit five claims this week, but was only successful in acquiring two additional runners, essentially replacing the two I lost.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The two new additions:<\/P> \u00a0 SUNDAY FREAK <\/B>is a 4-year-old mare (TIGER RIDGE X POLISH PRECEDENT X BOLDNESIAN) (14 2-2-3\u00a0 <\/SPAN>$22,489) dirt sprinter who had run 85 or higher SP\u2019s in her last four outings in allowance company.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>She dropped down in class and I was able to claim her for $2,000 in a race where she ran third with a 90 SP.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>I look to bring her right back in another dirt sprint, just not sure at what level to enter her \u2013 will probably try a smaller allowance race first to see how she does as right now she appears to be the best horse in the barn.<\/P> \u00a0 MALIBU VICE<\/B> (28 1-4-3\u00a0 <\/SPAN>$33,128) is a 5-year-old mare that I claimed for $5,000.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>She\u2019s another dirt sprinter who bounces back and forth between claimers and allowance.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>I look to bring her back again in a NW2L claimer.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>In looking back, I don\u2019t recall for sure what it was that I liked about her that prompted the claim \u2013 must have been her breeding and possible future broodmare use?\u00a0 <\/SPAN>(MALIBU MOON X MARQUETRY X VICE REGENT)<\/P> \u00a0 Since all are listed as ready to go, I will look to try to get them entered back this week again.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Overall results for the week were a loss of $326, but more importantly a dismal loss of 9 BP down to 41.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>I need to be more diligent about not spending BP on travel costs.<\/P> \u00a0 I received some good suggestions on the forums in response to my initial article that I\u2019ve begun to implement.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>For one, I\u2019ve already added two additional stables (yeah, I know \u2013 I\u2019m hooked!).\u00a0 <\/SPAN>But I will continue to only write about the bergd<\/I> stable for purposes of this column.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Another suggestion was that rather than trying to find claimers to fill the barn, some cheap purchases can be made through the auction that will accomplish the same thing.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>So I did spend some time searching through those this week and managed to pick up one auction purchase for one of my other stables.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>If nothing else, searching through the claimers and auction horses provides a good opportunity to research and learn about the sires in the game.<\/P> \u00a0 I am very anxious to begin breeding, but need to wait until I\u2019ve built up more BP and\/or credits.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>My biggest interest lies in breeding, training and following the 2-year-olds I\u2019ve bred throughout their career.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>In looking for claimers or auction purchases, I tend towards females with decent breeding with an eye towards future broodmares as my understanding is once I have them in my barn, even if I lose them at some point I still have the possibility of using them for broodmares once they retire.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>But I\u2019ve got a lot of reading and research to do before I\u2019m ready to even think about breeding and will be looking for help and advice in that area!\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Not even clear at this point on the pros and cons of breeding from scratch versus from a broodmare.<\/P> \u00a0 That\u2019s all for this week.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Hopefully better results ahead!<\/P> \u00a0 An Unproductive First Week<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"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":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-user-info"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4227","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\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}