{"id":9928,"date":"2012-01-25T21:37:15","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T21:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blacktypebugler.com\/?p=9928"},"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=9928","title":{"rendered":"Rivalry Time For Jukebox Kid & Can I Get Twelve In NZ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Best two out of three, anyone?<\/P>

If you watch the 16-furlong Grade 2 Fitness Cup in New Zealand this weekend, you could be catching what looks like the beginning of a very intense rivalry, one that could rage on all season long. <\/P>

And, for a grade 2 race, there are a few very interesting stories within the bigger story here in New Zealand this weekend.<\/P>

The Rivalry<\/STRONG><\/P>

Jukebox Kid (5-1)<\/STRONG> is back and looking to start another big winning streak. He\u2019s the horse who had won a grand total of three times in 17 starts before the 2011 season began. No one had ever heard of the five year old horse really before last season–no one except his owner, Kirby, of MUSTWIN Stables.<\/P>

And, suddenly, from out of nowhere, the scratch-bred son of Raven\u2019s Pass went on a ten-race tear in 2011 that saw him take down five graded wins during the ten-race win streak, a streak that would make him one of the most talked about horses at the end of last season. <\/P>

Jukebox Kid gained so much attention for his unbeaten streak in 2011 that the Del Penn Champions Day sponsors made a special race for him on Christmas Eve, a race that could have made Jukebox Kid a perfect 11-11 last season.<\/P>

But there was another horse in that Grade 1 Penn Endurance who goes by the name of Can I Get Twelve (4-1),<\/STRONG> and he was a horse who also had very big plans that day. Even though the horse owned by Smokeglack Stables had faced Jukebox Kid back in June in the Grade 1 Gold Glass in Berkshire–and finished second to him–the five year old son of Dynaformer beat Jukebox Kid on that cold December day in Pennsylvania and handed Jukebox Kid his only loss of the season and possibly cost him a shot at an Eclipse Award in 2011.<\/P>

Well, those two meet will meet again here in New Zealand, for the rubber match of this rivalry this weekend. And it\u2019s going to be a whopper of a race.<\/P>

There\u2019s not nearly as much money involved here in New Zealand Saturday as there was the first two times these horses met, but there are bragging rights involved, and like we mentioned above, a rivalry in the making in the long turf division. It\u2019s also a race that could kick start either of these horses on the 2012 Eclipse Award trail.<\/P>

Although the hype for the Grade 2 Fitness Cup this weekend will center mostly around Jukebox Kid and Can I Get Twelve and their greatly anticipated rematch, there are some other horses in this race, all of whom would love nothing more than to steal the thunder away from those two giants who made the inaugural DPCP Penn Endurance Stakes the must-see event in that huge end of the season series.<\/P>

The Very Impressive Who Want To Steal The Rivalry\u00a0Thunder<\/STRONG><\/P>

El Samurai (6-1),<\/STRONG> a five year old son of King Kamehameha will be looking for his third graded stakes win this weekend. El Samurai\u2019s won nearly half of his 28 starts (13), while collecting over $500,000 in career earnings. He was the talk of Europe this summer when he went on a four-race win streak of his own, which included the only two graded stakes wins of his career, the Grade 2 Yorkshire Plate and the Grade 2 Princess Of Whales. He\u2019s only been 16 furlongs once in his career before, and that was an easy win last time out in the listed St-Pete Around Steel Turf Endurance Route Stakes in North Dakota–a nice warm-up for his first graded try at 16 furlongs this weekend.<\/P>

The Irish-bred Rapaz (6-1)<\/STRONG> also makes the trek down to New Zealand Saturday. What he did as a three year old last season was rip through three consecutive graded wins last summer. And the son of Duke Of Marmalade made a monster comeback run to finish fourth behind Balance Act in that huge Coffeefields Cup race in Victoria. This is Rapaz\u2019s first time running 16 furlongs, but that shouldn\u2019t be a problem for a colt whose deep-closing running style says he\u2019s just begging for more ground. This colt is extremely impressive in his own right, and he is definitely a horse to keep your eye on this weekend in New Zealand.<\/P>

There\u2019s Balance Act (7-1),<\/STRONG> who won his first graded start in his first graded try last season, as a three year old facing older horses, when he grabbed the Grade 1 Classic Turf Stakes before finishing second in the $2 million Grade 1 Coffeefields Cup. He ended up his season finishing fifth in that big DPCD Penn Endurance race, behind both Jukebox Kid and Can I Get Twelve in December. He\u2019s four years old now, and the son of Giant\u2019s Causeway would love nothing more than to take down both Jukebox Kid and Can I Get Twelve this weekend.<\/P>

Dynaformer\u2019s got another son in here, the five year old Myth Or Magic (7-1).<\/STRONG> He\u2019s got quite a bit of experience here at this 16-furlong distance. In fact, his last six starts were all at that distance, including two graded stakes wins in the Grade 3 BBR Special and the Grade 3 Royal Oak. Another interesting thing to note here about Myth Or Magic is that he ran third in the Grade 1 Gold Glass in 2011 behind Jukebox Kid and Can I Get Twelve. He finished seven lengths back of Jukebox Kid that day, but he was only 2 \u00bd lengths behind the second-place Can I Get Twelve. Myth Or Magic is another deep closer, one who came from nearly 14 lengths off the pace in the Gold Glass to make up quite a bit of ground late. He could make things extremely interesting down the lane this weekend in New Zealand.<\/P>

Poet Sabina (9-1)<\/STRONG> is here also. The Irish-bred four year old son of Peintre Celebre who is based on the stakes-winning he-mare Cadillac Solitario made quite a bit of noise himself last season, when he scored three graded stakes wins including a romp-in-the-park eight-length win in the Grade 2 Saint Legend Stakes in Surrey. He also had a near miss when he finished a very game second in the $3.25 million Japanese Derby. Then, at season\u2019s end, his connections stretched him out to 16 furlongs for only the second time in his career, where he finished fourth in the very much talked about Grade 1 DPCD Penn Endurance Stakes. The first time Poet Sabina ran 16 furlongs, he won the Grade 3 Queen\u2019s Flower Pot by a very comfortable 5 \u00be lengths. Poet Sabina was really coming on strong at the end of 2011, having turned in 100-plus speed figures in each of his final four 2011 starts. This is very much a horse who\u2019s showing confidence as he\u2019s been asked to go longer. He also faced older horses for the first time in Pennsylvania in December, and that fourth place finish there behind Can I Get Twelve and Jukebox Kid was extremely impressive. Poet Sabina might just be getting ready to make a very big move in this long turf division.<\/P>

<\/P>

The English-bred Lowland Lightning (10-1)<\/STRONG> will be making the fifth graded start of his career here in the Grade 2 Fitness Cup on Saturday. The six year old son of Motivator has chalked up one graded win, and that came back in 2010 in the Grade 3 Little Man Cup. That was a 16-furlong race, so the son of Motivator definitely brings some graded success at this distance into this weekend\u2019s race. He only raced in two graded starts last season. He finished second in the Grade 2 Stars And Bars at 12 furlongs and he finished sixth in the Grade 2 Longdale Cup, where he was beaten by Jukebox Kid. <\/P>

The Girl Who\u00a0Would Be Queen<\/STRONG><\/P>

You know, if there\u2019s a big race around that is open to both genders, there\u2019s going to be a very highly regarded female in the picture, and Magniforma (12-1)<\/STRONG> definitely fits that bill here in New Zealand this weekend. The five year old daughter of Galileo began her racing career very late in her three year old season. In fact, for a five year old, she\u2019s extremely lightly raced, coming in here with only 11 career starts. But, oh, look what she\u2019s done in those 11 starts. Five months after her racing career started, she began a five-race win streak that would carry her right on into the 2011 Breeders\u2019 Bowl Congie Devito Filly And Mare Turf. How impressive is that? Well, in her five-race win streak leading up to her appearance in her first Breeders\u2019 Bowl appearance ever, she won all five by a total of 15 \u00be lengths. And during that streak, she qualified for the Breeders\u2019 Bowl with a couple of very big wins in the Grade 3 Stutenpreis and the Grade 1 Europe Classic, two big German races. And if that isn\u2019t impressive enough, Magniforma popped career-high speed figures of 113 and 111 in those races. This is the first time that Magniforma will be asked to go 16 furlongs. So far, she\u2019s been superb in the 11-12 furlong range. But this Saturday, she\u2019s up against some very big boys in this division, and she\u2019s being asked to run about a half mile farther than she\u2019s used to racing. Magniforma is no doubt one of the more interesting ones to watch in this field. Can she beat the boys? Can she stretch out to 16 furlongs? Magniforma just might be ready to pull off a pretty amazing trick here this weekend, if the answers to both of those questions are \u201cYes!\u201d Her connections are extremely confident, that much is certain. If they weren\u2018t she wouldn\u2019t be taking a shot at the boys in this race. <\/P>

The Long Shots Who Think They Can<\/STRONG><\/P>

The five year old I See Red (19-1),<\/STRONG> an Australian-bred son of Red Ransom, had won two of his last three starts before running in his first graded stakes race of his career last time out. He finished eighth in that big Grade 1 DPCD Penn Endurance Stakes last time out, when Can I Get Twelve put the kabosh on Jukebox Kid\u2019s winning streak. He\u2019s only got one 100-plus speed figure race coming in here, but he\u2019s extremely lightly raced for a five year old, with only 19 career starts coming in. He likes to close from the back of the pack, too, like so many of these, so he probably won\u2019t see a lot of fast early fractions here to run at late, and that could possibly hurt his chances. He does have two starts at this 16 furlong distance, though, and one of them was a second-place finish two starts back in the listed Rapid Grey Turf Stayer Stakes in Northern California.<\/P>

King Porter Stomp (29-1),<\/STRONG> a South African-bred son of A.P. Arrow, will be making his first graded start here Saturday. He\u2019s a pretty interesting horse here in that he was a former $35,000 claimer. What makes him even more interesting is that he\u2019s on a four-race win streak coming in here on Saturday. Two of his four wins during that streak came in 16-furlong events in Finland, a couple of allowance events. In his only listed stakes try, he won easily last time out in the Jupiter\u2019s Moons Turf Stayer Stakes in Turkey. He showed quite a bit of early speed in that race, and this lightly raced colt would love nothing more than to beat the big names in this race in his first graded start. He\u2019s only got two 100-plus speed figures under his belt, but both of those came in his last two starts. <\/P>

Kiss Of Betrayel (31-1)<\/STRONG> is the long shot here this weekend in the Grade 2 Fitness Cup. The five year old son of Bluegrass Cat only comes in here with two career wins in 22 starts, with earnings of a little over $60,000 in the bank. But the former claiming level horse from Yearoft Stables has been pretty solid since coming to this barn. His speed figures are a lot more consistent, and much higher, since he\u2019s been asked to go longer. In fact, since coming to Yearoft Stables, his only win in six starts has come at this 16-furlong distance, and that was a very impressive allowance win, one in which he came from nearly dead last in a field of ten to win by four lengths. He\u2019s only got one triple digit speed figure coming in here, and most notably, he\u2019s got no graded stakes experience. Against a field of monsters like this, that\u2019s asking a lot of Kiss Of Betrayel to overcome. But long shots can sometimes throw a wrench in the works in races like this. When there\u2019s so much focus on all the other stories within the story, sometimes a little known horse like Kiss Of Betrayel can sneak in and make some major noise in a race like this. Let\u2019s watch and see on Saturday if Kiss Of Betrayel can do exactly that.<\/P><\/SPAN><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twelve Go Forward In 16F Gr. 2 Fitness Cup<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":162,"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-9928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9928","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\/162"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}