Leave to Appeal - CHA-CHING!

A tad delayed in getting this up, but this li'l filly is like the energizer bunny. We claimed her for $6,250 and now she's won for $12,500 and $16,000. This last race was a delight the way she charged up the lane to nip the chalk at the wire. And with the SoCal turf suplements the purse rang in at $24,000. If only all claims worked out so well.

Results and Entries

Delta Slam finished in mid pack last Wednesday with an uninspiring run. I didn't see the race, but the chart didn't offer much promise. We'll keep watching in hopes he turns it around.

Leave to Appeal is being stepped up in class yet again and is entered in the 7th at Golden Gate on Black Friday. You can keep the shopping malls, I'll be at the track.

A partner in my Exploit filly, Irving, alerted me to a couple of broken maidens by Exploit progeny. One, in a 2yo Maiden Special Weight at Zia Park at the new track in Hobbs, NM, and another MSW winner at Hawthorne for 3yos. Both brought home nice checks, but I'd rather not have to wait until November of our horses three year old campaign to get our picture taken. Unless there are some extinuating circumstances, we'll drop her to a level where she can win before then. I have no illusions--we probably have a claiming horse here, but we'll let her opinion rule, of course.

Delta Slam Tries Turf

Half brother to our yearling, Delta Slam drew the six hole in a one mile maiden special weight over the Matt Winn Turf Course tomorrow at Churchill. He's got enough turf pedigree, in my opinion, and has every right to take to the surface. This is a solid field, though, and he'll have to improve to make an impact. We're hoping for the best.

Hard Day at the Track

I spent no less than 14 hours indulged in nothing but horse racing Sunday. From 6a works to TVG & HRTV supplied night racing. I dropped the little lady off at SFO at 5:30am and hotfooted it to Golden Gate for morning works--homemade bloody mary mix in tow.

Sunday was Cal Cup day with an early post so I had no down time, even utilizing the renovation break to make a few picks. It was lackadaisical handicapping, loads of fun, and as it turns out profitable.

About mid-card I ran into one of my favorite jocks, Barrington Harvey. He's not setting the world on fire, but he's a decent rider and I cleaned up with him at last year's Golden Gate fall meet when he logged a fourbagger and I had three of 'em.

Last Wednesday Barrington had tipped me off to an Ellen Jackson mount he had the following day--longest shot on the ML. He'd worked'em and said this was a ton of horse. I don't bet on Barrington's tips, but not because his tips are no good. They usually have some merit, but he tells EVERYBODY and when he's got a live one they'll get crushed.

At any rate, the horse ran well for second. The long and the short of the story is "Baze cried to the stewards" lodging an objection and Barrington got DQ'd and days. I didn't see the race and one jockey's account of events is less than reliable, but I always root for Barrington. He's headed to New York this weekend to see his kids and was hoping to get a win or two so he could throw some cash around. He had two mounts today, both up the track. I hope he gets a winner tomorrow. Tough gig, being a jock.

Leave to Appeal Upsets at 14-1

Leave to Appeal scored her third win in a row on Wednesday despite being hung five wide in the far turn and lugging out in the stretch.

The real headline is that this is the very first time I did not place at least a token win bet on a horse in which I had an ownership interest*. I was despondent after being shut out at the windows on the 6th at Santa Anita when I loved the 2 horse Stormin' Away at a very generous 10-1. The race went off with 1 MTP still showing on the in house feed and with my voucher still in the terminal. He wired the field, I sulked, then watched with mixed emotions as my horse took the honors at an even bigger price. The fact that I did not bet my horse tempered the joy I took from the win. This does not seem rational, but there is no denying the mixed emotions I felt as she stuck her nose in front at the wire. It probably speaks volumes about me. Deep down I'm still far more of a horse player than a horse owner.

*It seems somehow pretentious or misleading to say "a horse I own" or "my horse" when I only own between 2% and 20%, as is the case in most of these partnerships. I suppose it's time I get over that, for the sake of readability and avoiding wordiness, if nothing else. The yearling, on the other hand, I feel truely is My Horse, even if I have dished off some to a coupla partners.

Leave to Appeal entered Wednesday

Leave to Appeal is the most recent claim from a partnership I've been in for about a year. There are nearly 40 partners which makes it a bit impersonal, in that you don't get the access you would as an outright owner, or in a small self directed partnership. The advantage is someone else handles all the bills, you can get in for a very small investment--just a few hundred dollars--and this one is structured such that all fees are paid out of the initial investment and the assets, if any, are liquidated after the term of the partnership elapses.

We claimed her for $6,250 so we're stepping up quite a bit, but Armando's pretty high on her and she has some back class.

Breeder's Cup Post Mortem

Those were some of the worst selections ever represented as actual handicapping. All in all, I dropped more at the windows than I think I ever have in a single day at the track. I had a blast and it was worth every penny.

Breeder's Cup Picks

Juvie Fillies
Knights Templar - Yes she's a half to my filly, and that gives me an excuse to single a longshot in my early pick 4, but I don't care for Adieu or Folklore in this race, especially at the short price they'll each be. If I went one more deep, I'd take the Belmont proven Sensation.

Juvie boys
I like Henny Hughes, and my wise guy play is Superfly. First Samurai is a toss. Crawled home in the Champaign, and Henny had Stevens sending her hard. Regardless, you can't take short price with 2yo's....they're just to fluid when developing at this age.

Filly & Mare Turf
Karen's Caper - I'm all over her at the ML of 15-1 and higher, and I think she'll be higher. She had her stateside prep, has loads of talent, and the off going will be no problem. I'm adding Wend in my Pick whatevers. Ouija Board is capable of repeating, but the odds keep off most of my multi race tix. I love superstar Megahertz and she proved she can handle shipping and an off course in Chicago, but this is the type of company she hasn't been able to run with.

Sprint
I'm singling LITF, like the rest of the free world. The only non-multi race bet I'll make in this race is maybe Lifestyle and/or Attila's Storm to show. God forbid Foggy finishes off the board, these lads have every right to pay my next credit card bill with a show bet.

Mile
Leroidesanimaux is going to be tough to beat, and I can't leave him off the Pick 3/4/6. At least one pick whatever will include Valixir & Majors Cast, and these two will comprise my exacta.

Distaff
Stellar Jayne. It's the tactical speed. She's like a kinky girlfriend--you can do anything with her. On the lead, off the pace, up the rail, out wide. I'll also incorporate the young and improving Sweet Symphony. There's all kinds of value here.

Turf
Tough race. I'm taking imports Shirocco and Azamour, in that order. Gun Salute and Fourty Niner's Son rounds out my super.

Classic
Rock Hard Ten scratched which greatly decreases the value of the race from a sporting perspective, but from a betting standpoint, it saves me money. Single Borrego in the P6, and add Sauve on the wider tix.

Delta Slam Disappoints

The only foal of racing age out of the filly's dam finished 9th at Keeneland today. After his last race, I really thought he'd put it together next out. He was stepping up in class, drew the ten hole, and prefers to stalk or close--tough hand to win with on the speed favoring Keeneland strip. Anyhow, it wouldn't be horse racing without some disappointment.

Delta Slam in Third Career Start

Delamere's first foal, now a two year old, goes postward on Thursday in a $50,000 maiden special weight on the main track contested at 8.5 furlongs. We'll be rooting for him.

Starlet

Kathy from Triad sent me some pix today, and said "She is doing well -- "full of it" with the cool weather that has arrived!"

This reminded me of Charlie Whittingham, the famed trainer, who was fond of saying, "Owners are like mushrooms. Keep them in the dark, and feed them plenty of shit."

Hopes Up, Cash Down

The first boarding bill from the horse farm came today. No surprises, but I had to look over the charts from the half-siblings' races to remind myself what I'm paying for--not hay and oats--but hope. In the horse racing racket, hope isn't cheap.

The pain is further abated as Knights Templar is now pointed to the Breeder's Cup Juvenile Fillies race. If by some stroke of luck we see a win in the Cup for her, and a big win from Delta Slam I'd expect a phone call from the bloodstock set about our filly in short order. Not likely, but one can hope.

Naming Conventions

In the world at large horse names are of far more interest than horse races. Neophytes at the track are more apt to discuss how cute or funny the names "Susie's Indiscretion" and "Rent Check" in the fourth race are, than they are to delight in the way the third race ended in a thrilling photo.

Horseplayers forget this. Just the opposite, we will relish the memory of the 7 horse in an open claimer that we cashed on at 30-1, or that chestnut shipper that closed at astronomical odds to complete our trifecta. Particularly, when it comes to the bread and butter of most tracks' weekday cards consisting of maiden and claiming races, we may forget the horses even have names as we make our running notes in the form and place our bets by number.

Now it's different, though, because I'm the one that will register this filly's name. I nearly forgot about this aspect, as horseplayers are want to do, but luckily my new partners reminded me before the checks were written and feelings were hurt. I've been in a lot of partnerships initiated by others where I didn't get to register a horse. I took time off work, flew to Kentucky, and sucked up to Frank Taylor from Taylor Made farms so that I could get a quality pony I could afford. He doesn't make a habit of selling fillies below market, but he threw this first timer a bone. I'll be damned if I don't name her.

A common convention is to name horses after their sires, dams, or both. Storm Bird begat Storm Cat. Better yet, Colonial Affair begat Jefferson's Secret. Now the Jockey Club and a rather inventive owner are in court battling over his request to give a daughter of Jefferson's Secret the name Sally Hemmings.

Many owners name their horses consistent with a theme. Harry Aleo, owner of Lost in the Fog, names most of his horses with his hometown in mind and has campaigned the likes of Sutro and Frisco Star. Eugene Melnyk chooses names of places near his home in Barbados such as Graeme Hall and Flower Alley. I'm leaning toward a mechanical watch theme, but remain undecided on a name. Merely knowing that I have a horse I haven't named yet seems to compel folks to assemble and declare the best name for my horse. I've received no small number of suggestions about what to name her, but I see no need to either follow or host a naming convention.

Knights Templar Dominates in Mazarine

October 1st was a good day for owners of both foals by Exploit and foals out of Delamere. Not only did the Delamere colt offer a good account of himself, but this 2yo Exploit filly put on an exhibition in the Grade 3 Mazarine.

Woodbine
Knights Templar takes Mazarine BC

By RON GIERKINK
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Knights Templar ($10.10) led throughout the $270,400 Mazarine Breeders' Cup, taking the Grade 3 stakes for 2-year-old fillies by 13 1/4 lengths at Woodbine Saturday.
Knights Templar set fractions of 23.59 and 47.26 seconds, before opening up a five-length lead midway on the far turn of the mile and a sixteenth route. She drew off in the stretch, winning in a quick final time of 1: 43.15.

"She ran brilliantly today," said Jim McAleney, who rode Knights Templar for trainer Danny Vella. "Danny gave me permission to go if nobody else wanted [the lead]. He said he just wanted her happy and comfortable the first part of it, and she was happy and comfortable the first part, the middle part, and the last part."

Knights Templar banked $168,900 for owners Clover IV Stable and Krista Seltzer.

Sudsy Baby rallied along the rail to edge Top Notch Lady by a head for second. Favored Arravale finished ninth in the 11-horse field.

Delta Slam Puts in Good Second Start Effort

Delta Slam is by Grand Slam and is the first foal out of the little known Broodmare Delamere. He was a $145k Barretts purchase as a 2yo in training this past spring. I'll be looking for him to break his maiden in his next start, hopefully in a few weeks.

The chart of an October 1st race shows the 2nd place horse Delta Slam making an impressive 5-wide move around the far turn to finish a half length behind the favorite in a 12 horse field, and well clear of the show horse. In his first race he hopped the start and showed little. Sometimes horses take a while to figure it out, even if they have talent.

This is good news. Hopefully he's taking after his mother, and his half sister by Exploit can show as much promise by her second race. Of course, Grand Slam is no slouch, either.

Grand Slam is a more desirable sire than Exploit, has a higher stud fee at $85,000, and brings higher prices at auction. Grand Slam sired the likes of Limehouse and Cajun Beat. For comparison, Exploit's fee when he covered Delamere was $30,000. Now he stands in Korea, which is another reason we got this filly cheap. The reason being, if Exploit isn't in the US sireing winners, he's off the radar and thus less demand for his offspring. Also there's the American blinkers that horsemen wear that tells them if the stallion isn't in the US, it must not be much of a stallion.

Triad Farms

I called the boarding outfit today to pass along the billing information they requested and to ask about our charge. The filly is happily noshing bluegrass in Bourbon County. Kathy Watkins and her husband Steve run the horse farm just outside Paris where our li'l bundle of joy is stabled, and in the most delightful Kentucky dialect she declared "what an absolutely lovely filly you have..tsk...just beautiful." My heart swelled.

In a less delightful turn of events, the boarding fee is $20/day, which is more than I had hoped. Although my heart was proud, my billfold cowered.

There's a Sucker Born Every Minute

When I bought the filly, I didn't really know what I was going to do with her. I got a sensational deal from Frank, but I knew damn well I couldn't pay the feed bill for long. Jamey assured me Allison would go in for a cut, but I hadn't talked to her myself yet, and I also didn't know if the cut she had in mind was a mere five or ten percent. Eight or ten bucks a day for boarding adds up in hurry.

By the time I got back to San Francisco Allison had lined up a cadre of suckers, er, investors, rather. I tried to be as honest as I could on the phone, but still felt like a seedy used car salesman afterward. I was ecstatic over what a bargain this filly was, but didn't want my fervor to overshadow the realities of horse ownership. I emailed them because I wanted to stress a few points that potential horse owners should know.

First, here's the catalog page in pdf. Print it, frame it, put it on your wall, because there is a distinct possibility she never sets foot on the track, and an even greater chance you never get a picture taken in the winners circle to frame.

Note the sire stats. Exploit is reasonably typical--not a standout, but no hack, either. He has 3 crops of racing age which includes 213 foals of which 128 have started and 79 of which have won a race. That means 40% never even ran in a race. Maybe that number will go down as the 2 year olds (which represent a third of his foals) continue to make their debuts, and maybe even a late blooming three year old or two will still start. You can do the same exercise with the number of winners. Armed with this data, draw your own conclusions about the intelligence of racehorse owners.

I bought this filly for a song, but the purchase price will represent a fraction of the outlay by the time she starts a race, if she's even lucky enough to do so. As an example, suppose everything went as well as could be expected and we vanned her out in May of next year, schooled her and worked her under tack, then started her after being on track for just 6 weeks, which is ambitious. We're already committed to ~$500 in fees related to the purchase, then there's maybe $1,680 for 7 months of boarding in Kentucky, at least $1,000 for vanning her out, then the day rate kicks in for training the filly. $60/day for 42 days is $2,520. On track we've still got to pay the farrier, medication, and god forbid if she needs to see the vet. Lets add another $300 there as a starting point.

Now it's raceday. We've got to pay the starters fee, and the jockey, complete with workers comp insurance. $125.

She's not even out of the gate and the owners are out of pocket over six grand plus the purchase price. She could break poorly, throw the jock, jump the rail, and be retired right then.

Maybe we get lucky and she wins her first race with a purse of $10,000, of which she'll earn 60% or $6k. Then the jockey gets 10% and the trainer gets 5-10%. That only leaves $5,100 or less for the owners, the day rate is still ticking away, and the soonest she'll start again will be in 2-4 weeks. Once you get this far, you really only hope she pays most of her own feedbill and you get to enjoy a few races from the owners lounge. Come in third and your horse only earns ~10% of the purse money--not even enough to pay the bills until she starts again.

With all this said, we did get a sensational deal on this filly. Less than 6 hours before I bought her, she left the ring after the bidding reached $4,700 for her, but the reserve was not attained. Check the sales results for Friday 9/23/2005, Hip number 4006: Keeneland Sales Results.
In my opinion this means the odds are not as stacked against us, but make no mistake, they are still stacked!

Our other advantage is we were on site, with third generation horse trainer Jamey Thomas. Not many have the organic knowledge and eye for a horse from growing up on the backstretch that Jamey has.

I hope I haven't talked you all out of it, but these are the cold hard facts. Allison and I had some success with the gelding Tech Two, who paid most of his own bills. There's no assurance this filly will do the same.

Best,
BRAD

I thought for certain they would each politely return their change purse to their hip pocket and smile britely secure in the knowledge they had averted financial disaster. Luckily, two of them are as foolish as I am.

Keeneland September Yearling Sale

Jamey Thomas, a trainer based at Golden Gate Fields in Northern California, called me in mid September. He was headed to Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky for the sale. Of course I wanted to go.

Jamey has trained a few horses in which I've had an ownership interest before, which is to say I owned about a hoof's worth, or a handful of mane. A neighbor and good friend of mine, Allison, even went in on an old gelding with me in the spring. These horses were all claimers, and I was more of an also ran than a principle owner. Nonetheless, Jamey acts like you're Bob Lewis or the Ramseys, even when you only own ten percent of a $4,000 maiden claimer.

We touched down in Kentucky late afternoon Thursday September 22 with plans to hotfoot it over to Florence, KY for the twilight card at Turfway Park, a track I hadn't visited, but desperately wanted to scratch off my list in a quest to visit all black type tracks in North America.

Plans change. Brian Koriner, a NorCal trainer and good friend of Jamey's, invited us to hit Taylor Made Farm with him to eye some buybacks and private purchase stock. Taylor Made is the real deal. They stand the likes of Tiznow, the only horse to win back to back Breeder's Cup Classics, and Northern Afleet, sire of Afleet Alex. We couldn't pass that up. Brian apparently had clients with a budget and critiqued the confirmation on fifteen or twenty colts, and a couple fillies ranging in price form twenty grand upward to three hundred large. He was workman like in his evaluations. "Walk him down and back. Turn. Other side. Again. Put him away." He exuded professionalism and it was clear he was at work. He was in the office.

Afterward, the three of us went to the Taylor's steak house in Lexington for bourbon and red meat. Now I was with horsemen I recognized again. Recounting exploits, on the track, at the windows, in bed. Swilling booze. Cursing stewards. Telling lies.

Frank Taylor, one of the brothers that jointly own Taylor Made Farm and the establishment in which we sat, was there glad handing and talking breed. He spent a few minutes at our table asking how the steaks were, whether we liked the quarter of a million dollar War Chant colt we looked at earlier, if we knew where the titty bars were. He was charming, vivacious, but mostly an unpretentious horseman.

We concluded the evening at the hotel bar where I delighted in more chatter from buyers and breeders. One fella with a small farm in Florida recounted a hungover morning at the Ocala sale when he mistakenly bought a colt for 40 grand, thinking he was by Tale of the Cat. Turns out he was by Cat Tail or some such no name sire. Never ran a lick. He ordered another whiskey and chided us, "careful with the sauce, boys." Horsemen are legendary for deadpan humor. Whether this cowboy was, we never determined.