rock steady

Nautical Agent finished a good second this afternoon at Finger Lakes. Chart of the race is here. The pace and race flow worked against her, but she did well to overcome the bit of a disadvantage and pick up a good piece of the purse. I don't think she was touching the winner one way or the other, so second best is fine on the day. Doug reported that she came out of the race well. She'll get a few weeks now to recharge and we'll pick something out to target. She's such an honest filly; it's really hard not to like her.

I'm off in the morning for Maryland and the yearling sale coming up on Monday. I've got a list of around twenty to inspect once down on the scene and it's a pretty good lot. There are offspring from a few sires that I'm keen to see and a number of solid, under-the-radar type families also on the list. My readership is just too vast to divulge any information here, though. I'm sure my competition regularly checks these pages for any nugget that might hint at my inner thinkings ("Is it too late for cookies and milk?). As I've mentioned, this has been a good sale for us in the past (say, 'hey', Nautical Agent), so fingers are crossed that we can land something.

I'm not sure what my computer situation will be (no laptop going down), but if I sneak down to DC to crash with my brothers, I'll try to get on the computer and post an update. If all of our bullets are fired for Monday, I'll probably head up tomorrow night before going back down for Tue/Wed. Should be a fun stretch of days. I've found that any excuse to drain the ING account always makes for good times.

brandy, anyone?

Busy week with the sale coming up, but the pedigree should wrap up today/tomorrow before I head down to Maryland on Sunday. It's a good group in the mix, perhaps a bit light on NY-breds (they all seem to be going to the select sale in August or pointed to 2yo sales), but I'm pleased by what's in the hunt going in. I'll try to keep things up to speed on the sale as it unfolds.

Mass Romantic worked from the gate on Wednesday with an unraced 2yo from Mike Matz's barn (trainer of Barbaro). Tim was cool with the move, said she did it very well. She'll go once more, probably 5/8ths from the pole, before we stick her in the entries. Knee is good to train on, but race will be true measure of where it stands. Fingers are crossed...

Veiled Reference is calming down a bit in the mornings. She stood behind the gate yesterday and didn't totally lose it, so she's headed in the right direction. All is fine with her training, it's just these other maturity-related items that Tim wants to sort out as she embarks on her career. No sense in having too many anxiety-provoking issues in play if they're to be avoided. I'm thinking of sending down Kate for a consult. Anyway, she's probably about a week or two behind Mass Romantic.

Nautical Agent is ready to rock on Saturday. It's as tough as spot as you'll find at the level, but she'll do her thing and we'll hope to pick up a check. I'll be at the Rutgers game, so I'll have to make a few phone calls and see if they'll put the espn.com feed up on the scoreboard. We'll tailgate after the race, win or lose. That's how my grandmother taught me how to roll and it's always a sure-fire winner. Now where did I put that bottle...

"i'm reloading..."

Nautical Agent is in on Saturday at Finger Lakes, race 8 (approx. post time 4:20pm). It's a little quicker to run back than we'd prefer, but she's come out of her last well and our options are somewhat limited as far as what's in the book. So, we'll send her out and see if she can pick up a piece of the pot. It looks like there's a decent amount of speed in the race; a heated pace battle up front would only help her chances. Drill is the same as last time: race can be watched at espn.com (link here). Think of it as an alternative to college football on Saturday.

Mass Romantic was to have worked this morning from the gate down at Fair Hill. Works are slooow to get up on the tab when they are posted, so we'll see if anything pops up in the next day or so. I'll catch Woolley on the move later this week, anyway.

study hall

The Fasig-Tipton Eastern Fall Yearling sale at Timonium, MD is coming up next week, so rather than just flip to random catalog pages and start bidding, I've been trying to sort through the offerings over these past few weeks. It's sort of like studying for midterms back at college, only I actually look at the pages now as I turn them. All in all, it's a deep book with some things to like. It's always interesting to see how they hold up in the flesh, but there are certainly some solid pedigrees with which to work. We've bought a number out of this sale (Nautical Agent, Mass Romantic, Veiled Reference, Secretly Taken), so we're hopeful that something strikes the team's fancy and falls in our wheelhouse.

Things are still to the good otherwise. Veiled Reference and Mass Romantic are both coming up on final works leading up to a start. Mass Romantic is probably a little bit closer, but her stablemate isn't too far behind. It seems she'll just need a bit more work at the gate before we can send her out. No sense in spotting the field five lengths right from the bell, you know? We'll probably target a few dates in October once they've knocked off their respective breezes this week.

Have to get on to Doug re: Nautical Agent. No news is usually good news, but we're due to kick around a spot for her. I've got an idea or two; if she's bounced back in good form, we'll shoot to run her back relatively soon.

Headline at bloodhorse.com indicates the push for slots in MD has started up again. Mass Romantic and Veiled Reference are by MD stallions, so that sounds good to me. I recall reading an article in the Ledger recently that reported NJ is really in bad shape financially, as well, (shocking, I know) so let's go for machines at the Big M, too. My bet is that you'll have them up north within three years, if not sooner. Will have to give NJ-breds in that catalog a good look...

c'mon down

In anticipation of the Breeders' Cup at Monmouth Park this season, the NJ Racing Commission (NJRC) was charged with ushering through a host of anti-doping measures aimed at keeping things on the up and up for the Big Day. Funny enough that it would take an out of state entity to get NJ moving on some of these items, but I guess this one falls under the category of better late than never. The bloodhorse reports here.

I found another article, here, though in the Star Ledger, where certain horsemen spoke out against the new rules, principally the one that empowers the NJRC to inspect and test at out-of-state barns (and local ones, too) where NJ runners are based. Essentially, if the NJRC thinks something is up for whatever reason, they've got the right to inspect the barn and test the trainers' horses for illegal substances. Sounds reasonable to me, as masking agents are as sophisticated as any race-day test currently in use, so it struck me as odd that certain folks would be opposed to the measure. Ummmm, anything we should know about going on back at the barns, guys?

make it rain

All fine with Nautical Agent coming out of her win on Thursday. She probably thinks she's hot stuff now. I was talking with a few folks about how funny it is that she seems to get over this Finger Lakes course. It seems that horses either love it or hate it, and she's one that takes to it well. No sense messing around with a good thing, so she'll stay put in NY and wait for an appropriate spot in a few weeks. We were out on the town to celebrate last night, making it rain $100 bills at every stop. Okay, it was quarters we were throwing at unsuspecting bar patrons, but our enthusiasm was the same.

Tim Woolley had a big win out in western PA last night. Who's Happy won one of the restricted PA-bred stakes going two turns. Win certainly more than makes up for the seven hour van ride out. We'll take a hard look at PA-breds at these sales coming up. The statebred program there is strong, racing calendar essentially year-round and the ship from Fair Hill in MD is no problem.

Based on her work pattern to date, Mass Romantic was likely to breeze again this morning, but her schedule will depend on how Tim did getting back from his road trip. She'll go one way or the other over the next few days and should be maybe one work away after this one before we shop for a spot. We just missed a logical one in the book for 9/26, so we might have to get creative if the racing office doesn't throw something up on the overnight that fits. Preference is to start back on turf, but if that won't fly, we'll come up with Plan B.

training up to the Breeders' Cup

The winner's circle enclosure afterward might have been new to her, but Nautical Agent ran like an old pro this afternoon, settling nicely and closing like a freight train (or a little choo choo, at least) down the lane. Good on her! I spoke to Michelle, who's looking after her up there for her brother, Doug, and asked her to give Nautical a big hug. Chart for the race is here.

We caught a real break when Little Nikki missed the start of the race and then rushed up into the pace. She was the filly to beat and her early exertion left her short in the lane. Pity for her that the Agent wasn't taking any prisoners. (Okay, I'll stop now.)

We'll see how she comes out of today and map something out in the coming weeks. Time to put together an order of carrots to send up her way.

y=mx+b

My senior year of high school, I made the mistake of taking AP Calculus. I'm not sure how I placed into the course, as I barely survived Math Analysis in my junior year (and "barely survived" is probably even too generous; my overall grade for the year was around a C+/B-). Anyway, they stuck me in AP Calc the following year and I showed up, ready for anything, and perfectly content to kill 45 mins. before lunch each day oblivious to whatever might be going on in the classroom. The teacher, Mr. Fouratt, a nice enough guy, taught directly to the chalk board, as opposed to the class itself, so between his mumbling up at the front and overall disinterest in any kind of back and forth with the class, it was a fine stretch of time to catch up on recreational reading, grab some shut-eye or leave the room for long stretches. Unsurprisingly, it was one of my favorite classes.

So, the year went on and by the half-way point, some of the stuff I had picked up, some of it was totally lost on me, but overall, things were generally looking good for me to coast through the balance of the year, take my C, and get the heck out of dodge. Sadly, it wasn't gonna go down like that.

In a most unfortunate development, the material started getting a bit intense for my limited skills, which primarily consisted of taking a formula or proof, or whatever they were called, I can't remember, and simply rewriting them as many different ways as I could cook up. The only hard and fast rule that I could manage to adhere to was whatever I did to left side of the equation, I'd sure as shit do to the right side. These basic math chops had scored me many a partial credit dating back to the fifth grade, and, for better or worse, were probably what landed me in the AP course in the first place.

Long story short, we have an exam on derivatives or something and the art of twisting and turning them as the rules of calculus dictate, and I am absolutely dying during the exam, totally dead in the water, fully aware that my tools have been rendered useless. It's ugly. Sure enough, exam comes back the next week and I get, like, an 18 out of 100. Not good. I'm the last one to walk out of class that day, clearly shell-shocked, trying to shake it off and Mr. Fouratt calls after me, "Hey, Massey, y=mx+b! You can't even figure out the slope of a line now? Gotta know how to walk before you can run, man." Apparently, in my butchering of the exam, I'd consistently botched up one of the more basic formulas applied in sorting out the more serious stuff. I'm not sure what exactly I had done wrong, but it was enough for Fouratt to needle me about it for the balance of the year. But at least he'll never get that car of his at the bottom of the lake.

Why even mention it? Well, I only bring it up because Veiled Reference worked from the gate this morning down at Fair Hill. Only part of the work that she missed was the part where she comes running out of the gate. Whoops. Tim said she gave a good size hop, looked around as if to ask, "is there some kind of problem?," and then only got to running once Tim nudged her to go on. Everything after that went fine, she traveled well, but Tim wasn't thrilled that she'll need additional schooling at the gate. Unlike my math skills, it's readily sorted out with a bit of practice, but when Tim mentioned it, I couldn't help but think of my Calc experience. I've managed to hold things together relatively well (I have a blog!), so there's hope yet for the filly, too. She'll work back next week.

upstate happenings

They finally managed to fill a race for Nautical Agent up at Finger Lakes, so she's in on Thursday of this week (entries here). The race is fairly similar to last time, as she'll have to deal with a decent stretching out sprinter that projects to sit an ideal trip (Little Nikki). Not much we can do, but hope that the pace is honest enough and that our filly gets a clean run at the leaders. Doug Nunn passed along that she's doing well and ready to fire. As long as the site is working okay, you should be able to watch the race at espn.com (link here). Just click on Finger Lakes in time to watch the feed for race four. ESPN can be moody as far as what browsers it will support, but I've had luck with both Firefox and Explorer. Given her late-running style, sometimes she enters the viewing screen and sometimes she doesn't. Keep your fingers crossed that she's featured prominently in the stretch run.

weekend news

Mass Romantic had her first work in company over the weekend at Fair Hill. She went a stiff 5/8ths in company with Real Lace, another 3yo filly with some ability that Tim trains. Mass Romantic was down on the inside and the two went the distance in 1.01 2/5, good for the third quickest move on the tab. They galloped out together.

Tim said that Mass Romantic got a good amount out of the breeze - she was blowing decently enough afterwards and had to work to keep pace with the fitter filly late in the work. Real Lace is going in a stake at Presque Isle later this week out in western PA, so we'll see if she at least shows good pace in the race, which would speak to her sharpness. All in all, a good morning for Mass Romantic. She'll be much tighter for the work and another step closer to a start back. She'll probably do something from the gate next out and then maybe once more at 5/8ths before she's put in the entries.

From what I gathered, it sounds like Veiled Reference is coming out of her skin now that she's settled in. Tim said that they've had to pony her up to the track these last few mornings to keep her cool, and that kind of freshness is typical of a horse that's feeling good and wants to do a bit of running. Well, she'll get her chance to lay down some speed later this week, as Tim has plans to work her from the gate on Wednesday morning with another 2yo filly that's coming up on a race. The work will help Tim get a line on our filly and map out a schedule for the next few weeks. I'd guess that a start in early October sounds about right. He's quite happy with how she's getting on and probably as curious as anyone to see how she breezes. She'll be glad to finally blow off some steam.

Baywatch in Maine

Nothing to do about horses, but it seems that readership is hungry for photos from the wedding trip. Well, I'm not one to disappoint (at least when I can easily help it, anyway), so here's one that should be perfect for use as a desktop wallpaper. Personally, I just set my icons right around that mass of delightfulness.

Nautical Agent's race still on the backburner. We'll see what the weekend brings...

lifelong learning is cool

Nautical Agent is still doing her thing up at Finger Lakes. We'll know more maybe as early as tomorrow as to her next engagement. The spot we entered her in for Monday didn't fill, but there's another race similar to her last that might go. I'm not sure that it will come up as light as it did last time around, but we can always hold out hope.

It might be more technical than some would prefer, but have a glance anyway at the transcript of a chat with Avalyn Hunter over at bloodhorse.com. Like a lot of young girls in horse country, Hunter caught the bug early on and became a real student of thoroughbred pedigrees. I caught a similar bug, yes, but it was the strain that steered me toward the $2 windows, as opposed to the library. Besides, the North Edison Library's collection on the breed wasn't what you'd call stellar. I remember once back in high school when I asked if they'd order a book by Andy Beyer on constructing speed figures and the woman looked at me as if I'd requested writings on bomb-making in your backyard. I've had a tough time trusting librarians ever since.

Check out the chat, though. I think I might break down and get this new book on Mr. Prospector that she's plugging, too. He's been so influential on the breed (three of our fillies trace back to him) and it's always fun to consider new perspectives on horses that you've known and worked with in some level of detail. I've always been more into the physical traits associated with pedigrees (i.e. how the bodies of the sire and dam lines match up), but Hunter is really dialed in on the genetics and all of the funky breeding crosses out there, so I think it should be a good read. If I can muster up the nerve, maybe I'll look to save the 20 bucks and try my luck at the library again.

hello, ladies

Okay, enough goofing around with trying to post pictures to this thing. As you can see below, I've got a few up to check out. You can see the balance of the shots here. My dad and I were down to Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland to visit Mass Romantic and Veiled Reference. Both fillies are to the good. Veiled Reference is still getting used to the new scene, but Tim indicated that she's coming around bit by bit. Sure, maybe I stunted her progress a day or two with all the picture taking and tracking her about, but she seemed to take it all in stride. It was kind of amusing, though, how just the silliest things would put her and another new 2yo filly on alert. When she was walking with the other filly to the training track it was funny to watch the two of them figure out together that they were headed for the track (you have to walk up and over a good-sized field to get there). They were like:

Filly One: Did you know they were taking us there?
Filly Two: No, I thought we were going to the mall .
Filly One: Are we sure we want to do this?
Filly Two: Maybe we'll go to the mall afterwards.
Filly One: So, you wanna just go?
Filly Two: Only if you want to.
Filly One: Okay, let's just take it real slow and keep our bearings.

They were like two edgy cops entering a suspicious apartment or something, each carefully scoping out the scene before advancing. I swear I heard the one shout back, "Clear!" to the other before they stepped on to the track.

"look, i'm a statue!"

"you best look at me when i'm talking to you."

so soapy

second mortgage right call

If you're in the business, whether through ownership, trips to the windows or picking out the prettiest horse in the paddock, you're likely familiar enough with all of the second guessing that's involved. Over the years, I've come to be pretty good at rolling with the punches after a bad beat, mismanaged play or times when I've zigged instead of zagging. Logic dictates that the combination of thousand pound animals running around with tiny men and women on their backs is going to end in confounding results more often than not. Plus, every once in a while, the chaos will unexpectedly break your way and lead to a big score. So, even though I might mutter to myself for a few minutes after an especially unkind turn of events, I'm usually over it fairly quickly.

On the ownership side of things, I'm still learning how to go with the flow. It's probably been a little trickier if only because so few horses ultimately make it through the vetting process once we hit up a sale. Normally, we'll go in with a list of, say, twenty horses, most of which will get knocked off due to one physical issue or another. From the lot that's left, the vet might knock off the odd one or two due to something with the scope or radiographs. Finally, I'll give the thumbs up or thumbs down depending on what I've had for breakfast that particular morning. The end result is that we're usually left with 2-3 at most that we can seriously think about acquiring.

Anyway, I've been catching up with some of the racing missed while away last month, and had the distinct pleasure to spot that our second-ranked filly from last year's Fasig-Tipton yearling sale at Timonium, (pedigree page here), just aired in her debut at Monmouth Park. A few hours after Kate came home from school and found me in the fetal position under the computer desk, I was able to come around and see it as a positive thing, you know, in like a, "Yeah, I could have had her, man, but I just didn't feel like it," kind of way. Totally sad, of course, but these are the things you tell yourself if only to get some sleep at night.

The story is pretty simple. She was one of two to make it through the ringer (Veiled Reference was the other), though we had her ranked behind the filly we did land. She was a NJ-bred with a big walk that covered an unbelievable amount of ground and did it really smoothly. My only knock on her was that she might not come to hand until her 3yo season (she has a late-developing pedigree), by which time we would have missed the 2007 NJ racing season. Naturally, you could have taken it to the bank at the time that she'd win for fun as a 2yo.

So, we scored our top choice, Veiled Reference, for $50,000 on day one of the sale and then came back the next day hoping to pick up this other filly for $40-50,000, which would have been tight, but I thought we could scrape it together. When we got down there, word got back to us that $60,000 was the number to land her. Naturally, I squealed a, "You've got to be kidding me," or two and finally determined that my couch cushions would come up about $59,999 short of their number and, besides, I had it in my mind that she wouldn't see the races until 2008. Well, she sold for $60,000, romped last month (and is now worth closer to $160,000) and projects as a filly that will get better with time (really? you don't say.). Her name is Love For Not, she's trained by Kevin Sleeter and she'll clean up in NJ over the next few years. Naturally, I'll have to be leaving the state soon.

The lesson, as always: taking out equity in your house is okay for kitchens, bathrooms, flat screen TVs and good NJ-bred racehorses. Second, said good NJ-bred racehorses can be forgiven for late developing pedigrees, as it should always be remembered that they'll be competing against fellow NJ-breds to start their careers, not the best horses of their generation. Third, don't be a baby over $10,000, especially when it comes to a nice NJ-bred. You'll drop $30,000+ a year taking care of that bad boy or girl, so the few thousand to get one that you really like is de minimis in the scheme of things. (De minimis, by the way, was one of my favorite Latin phrases to use with my old boss when he was whining over something brutally unimportant; his face would twist up in a combination of anger and confusion and then he'd usually stalk off; you'd think he'd break down and look it up after the third or forth time.)

stroke of genius

Normally, I could go on for a number of paragraphs related to this recent piece in the Bergen Record, but it's too easy, number one, and, number two, burning bridges in public forums ain't my bag. I much prefer the face-to-face kiss off. Best of luck with the subcommittee, anyway. I imagine that there will be an unbearably shortsighted type deal to announce just prior to the Breeders Cup, with all parties openly celebrating their bit of pissing into the wind before heading up to the parterres for crab cakes. Just good to know that there are certain things you can count on in this world. (That's gentle chiding, people.)

As for our little operation, no pre-Breeders' Cup press events in the plans (Fortuna not running in the Distaff, FYI), but all still in pretty good order. Nautical Agent and Fortuna have both come back well from their last at Finger Lakes. We'll look to run the Agent back in the next two weeks depending on how the races fill and Fortuna, our favorite problem child, might be moving on to that second career I spoke of in an earlier post. No, not competitive eating, though it could ultimately prove a viable third option for her, but the breeding shed, where she might actually do alright. We've got a few promising leads; there might be something done within the week or so. No tears, please, unless they're tears of joy.

Down in Maryland both Mass Romantic and Veiled Reference keep on trucking. Mass Romantic worked 5/8ths over the weekend in 1.04 (this was her first time at the distance) and will likely come back next week at a quicker tempo. She seems to be hanging in there just fine. The knee is good and her head is in the game. Her new stablemate, Veiled Reference, pulled into town this week and has taken the few days to adjust to her new surroundings. I'd guess that Tim will breeze her back sometime the middle of this week. Word is that she shipped in well and looks the part. We'll take the next three weeks to sharpen her up and then get things started at Laurel Park early next month.

don't hate

The creative department at T Street finally kicked out something to plug into the banner. I've consistently slashed their budget since the launch (we might be down to half a six pack at this point), so I really can't complain about the turnaround. We'll tinker around with it, maybe try to get the writing a bit more prominent. The silks are otherwise set - it's the yellow and blue that streak around ovals up and down the east coast. Sure, "streak" is perhaps a bit generous, but the fillies read the blog from time to time and they get sensitive when I get on them too much.

Speaking of sensitive, a reader ("the" reader, I should say), passed along that maybe I was being too hard on Fortuna. I mean, I never say anything to her face, of course, (it's strictly carrots, mints and the occasional pep talk), but she's clearly figured out that she gets fed each morning regardless of her performance in the afternoons. Now, maybe that makes her a genius, but I lean more toward ungrateful. She reminds me of a guinea pig, Sid (pictured), that's been staying at my in-laws' place up in Maine the last few times we've visited. Every morning, without fail, that little guy is up at, like, 6:00am wailing, "YEEP! YEEP!" until someone breaks down and feeds the guy. Five minutes after someone has thrown heaps of alfafa at him, he's back with the YEEPs. Can he be serious? Just like Fortuna, Sid doesn't get the very basic quid pro quo at work: we feed you and then you keep quiet, or in the filly's case, at least pretend to try. I could get all psycho-silly on the effect of reinforcement and that sort of thing, but I feel myself moving closer to tears and don't want to lose it. I need to keep what's left of my dignity intact.

Continuing with the soft theme, how about the Grade One Ruffian stakes at Belmont on Saturday? The $300,000 race drew five fillies (write-up here). One of them, Ginger Punch, comes off a phony Beyer figure at Saratoga (remember the fuss over Lawyer Ron's fig?), but will still take serious action at the windows. I've got to think that Take D'Tour holds the pace edge at 1m 1/16, so the question becomes whether one of the others can benefit from a protracted pace battle (Rahy's Appeal maybe?). Anyway, the point for bringing it up is just to highlight that only FIVE fillies are in for the Grade One. Ummm, maybe we should go buy some decent fillies and see if we can pick up a Grade One placing? Done and done. If she's still to the good, we've got Mass Romantic penciled in for this race next year and Veiled Reference scheduled for the Gazelle in October 2008. Slightly delusional, yes, but the most brilliant plans always are.

polar opposites

Two fillies ran at Finger Lakes today (okay, one ran, one kind of shuffled along). Nautical Agent put in another fine showing against a fairly decent field and finished up second of seven (chart here). She lagged behind early and then, like the Little Engine that Could, kept grinding along to pass all but one. Unlike her stablemate, Fortuna, whom I had hoped would pick up a thing or two from her much smaller friend, Nautical Agent showed great try to take the dirt as she did and keep coming into the slow-paced affair. What she lacks in her frame, she makes up with her effort. Fortuna, beautiful as she is, just has no interest in running past other horses (chart here). Maybe if they drove an ice cream truck in front of the field it might spark some fire, but until Mr. Softee takes over Finger Lakes Race Track, we're in trouble. She'll need another career, either as a broodmare or in competitive eating.

Veiled Reference arrives tomorrow at Fair Hill (cue evil laughter). She's been training smartly, as they say, down in Ocala, so let's hope she carries that form north. While I was blissfully caught up in wedding comings and goings, she put in two very nice 3/4ths works in Florida (last one in 1.17 and change on Saturday), galloping out with purpose each time. She's looking like a filly that will do her best work at distances north of a mile, which suits me just fine, as that's where the money be.

Mass Romantic continues to train on in good form. She worked over the weekend, but I'm not sure of the time/distance, as they're hit or miss as far as what they post on the tab at Fair Hill. Those Irish and English outfits down there are setting up a bet half the time (they're just lazy the rest of the time), so it comes as no great surprise. I spoke to Woolley briefly the other day and he said all was well with her, so that's good enough for me.