Newsletter # 25 Recap

　

Newsletter # 25 Sat. 6/30/12

　

Bashford Manor Gr. 3 CD R6

This is the first graded stakes for 2 yr olds this year but will have no bearing on the KY Derby because they are not counting earnings this year, nor are they counting sprint races.

What we can look forward to is the Breeders Cup and how things develop in the early races. Even at this early stage I am looking at pedigrees to determine which ones have the potential to get the classic distances. There will be some horses that will look quite brilliant early on but will have trouble getting the longer distances. Many of these early stars will be the precocious type but will run into trouble later in the year and into next year when the slower maturing ones catch up.

This is only a grade 3 sprint but there are several in here with very nice pedigrees that could carry them a long way. Some may not be around by Breeders Cup time but on the other hand, we never know when a star will appear.

There are four in this race with fairly nice classic breeding but I'm leaning towards Positively and Roman's Avenue. The other two are Circle Unbroken and Go Jack Go. Special Jo was kind of expensive and blew them away in his first start but I'm looking at him as a sprinter. He may be good at a mile or so but I can't see him getting the longer distances.

I didn't think Hansen could get the longer distances last year but he did manage to win the BC. A lot of them look like stars until they have to get the derby distance but I will only be concentrating on those with distance potential.

All but one of these has won their last race so it looks to be a very contentious race and since it's only a sprint there's nothing to separate the men from the boys except speed. Special Jo will probably be the chalk considering the way he buried them in his first try. These babies can show some huge improvement race to race so I like to buck the odds and hope for a big upset of sorts.

1- Positively....has a super nice pedigree and looks to be bred to run all day...showed big improvement in second start and I expect to see him move forward off that one.

2- Roman's Avenue...another classic pedigree and looks to be speedy...Romans is high on this one and should make his presence felt.

3- Circle Unbroken...another with good distance potential in his pedigree...should like the extra little bit of distance.

4- Special Jo...his breeding doesn't tell me he will handle the classic distances but this is only a 6f sprint so he could very well win on speed alone.

Long Shot- Go Jack Go...has a lot of stamina on the dam side and should be good over a distance of ground...may be a little slow for these right now but I'm keeping my eye on him

Recap

Result;

1st.....Circle Unbroken

2nd....Positively

3rd.....Special Jo

Circle Unbroken sat just off the pace and had a nice trip splitting horses in the stretch. Positively was squeezed at the start and dropped back to last, started a long run after a quarter, reached contention in the stretch but couldn't get to the winner. He was running sort of erratically in the stretch and was bearing in and I thought he was having a problem. I later read a Twitter that said Positively had shin problems and would be out of action until the fall.

Both horses have really nice pedigrees and I expect to hear from them down the road in the longer distance races.

Backstretch