By Thomas Chambers
It started great and ended spectacularly.
The 2009 Breeders’ Cup World Championships was the finest and funnest stretch of horseplaying I’ve ever experienced. Oh, and I turned a profit too.
Like Ed Norton, I got the old knuckles loose and cashed a ticket right up front on the first race from Santa Anita on Fillies and Mares Friday. Up next, the Breeders’ Cup Marathon, an anomaly already, as it was just for males. Throwing in Man of Iron and showing faith in Jonathan Sheppard and nine-year-old Cloudy’s Knight, it was exacta time. She may have moved a bit earlier, but Rosemary Homeister, Jr. was the picture of thrilled in placing ‘Knight in her first Breeders’ Cup.
By this time, the Kimberly Komet arrived, big bro having beaten Chicago’s answer to the Van Wyck, the Kennedy, on a Friday afternoon.
The Juvenile Fillies Turf seemed a no-brainer, but the bettors thought otherwise. I remembered how everyone said Tapitsfly was having such a good week and twitched when he went off at nearly 10-1. Rose Catherine gave her all she could handle and we won’t know if Tapitsfly’s Robby Albarado inadvertently knocking the whip out of JJ Castellano’s hand decided the outcome. ESPN did a tremendous job in getting the shot on slo-mo.
Local training hero Wayne Catalano came through in the Juvenile Fillies for the second time (he also had Dreaming of Anna in 2006) with She Be Wild. I liked her based on my calculation of speed rating and track variant, and the Cat Man always represents himself well when he gets these kinds of chances. $25.80 win and place.
Caught a small exacta in the Filly and Mare Turf, and I did it sticking with Pure Clan, who ran a helluva race to finish second.
I also stuck with Life Is Sweet in the Ladies Classic and she rewarded me with a $24.20 win/place payout. And Zenyatta’s stablemate also completed the first half of my two-day Classic Double, where you bet the Ladies Classic and the Classic like a Daily Double.
After a great night of the sweet science at UIC Pavilion Friday night, it was off early to Hawthorne Race Course, where the Gold Cup Room would be filled by Breeders’ Cup time, giving it a vibe you don’t usually see.
It was a betting error in the Sprint that had me doubting my very existence when Dancing In Silks, a horse I played and liked because he is a California boy and ran the best race of his life last out, came home the winner at 25-1. I had covered the second horse, Crown of Thorns, in an individual bet, but did not include him in the exacta. To my horror, I saw that he too was a California horse, lightly raced. I included Capt. Candyman Can in that exacta, duped by deceptive back class. The exacta paid $227.90. But not for me.
This was one of those moments where your handicapping life passes before your very eyes. I was basically spinning my wheels, and trying the diversion of playing a few Hawthorne races proved futile. I chased the Juvenile and the Mile to no avail, but enjoyed Goldikova winning his second straight Mile in typically dominant fashion. He was probably the best Euro on the grounds.
It was on to the Dirt Mile, which is not exactly a mile and is run on fake dirt. By this point, I had determined that, dammit, the stakes are larger on Breeders’ Cup day. Wager bigger if you want the big payout and also be prepared to lose it.
Furthest Land caught my eye by being two-for-two on synthetic, just winning the Grade 2 Kentucky Club Classic at Turfway with his best race ever, running in his second race off a short freshening, and working out very well on both dirt and Santa Anita’s ProRide synthetic coming in. A $63 win/place payout later and I was back in business.
I lost money but cashed a ticket as Conduit proved impossible to beat in the Turf. But the race provided one of the highlights of the day when Presious Passion did his patented “see you later” routine and built up a lead of more than 20 lengths. This time, however, he held on! He held and held and held until the final strides when Conduit raced by him in a thrilling finish. It was the race of ‘Passion’s life.
And then came the Classic, which lived up to its name and then some. You could have handicapped for or against Zenyatta, but you couldn’t toss her, as some did. In fact, I thought she would either win or finish far up the track, nothing in between.
I also stuck with Twice Over and Summer Bird and remembered all of the gutty performances by Gio Ponti this year and covered him.
The gate loading was a mess, as Quality Road refused to go in. Most times, they throw their tantrum and then load, but Quality was kicking high and hard and fighting it every inch. They then put a blindfold on him and that made it worse. The biggest fuss I’ve ever seen. He was then scratched.
(Quality Road’s travails continued Monday as he refused to board a plane for New York and will now have to be vanned across the country. He’s a big, long horse, and fills up more of the gate stall than most. He’s claustrophobic.)
Once the gates opened, Zenyatta was a bit in the air and broke slowly. Any other horse, the race is over. She swung her head to and fro as they went under the finish line for the first time. Looking like the Kentucky Derby winner in running last, Zenyatta was in fact escorted into the first turn by Mine That Bird.
By the half-mile pole, Zenyatta passed ‘Bird and began making an oh-so-subtle move. Just reaching the main pack early in the last turn, Mike Smith and the big mare pulled a move I haven’t heard anyone mention. Smith tucked her down on the rail on the turn. It was contrary to most of her previous wins when she just looped the field on the outside to stay out of trouble and used her exceptional talent to outrun them. This time, Zenyatta showed an extraordinary turn of foot and cut the corner like a turn at Indy and slungshot out of the turn and underneath an arc of horses taking the more conventional route. In the process, she inhaled six rivals.
Now she was in about the five slot, entering the stretch quickly, seemingly content to find her usual path to the wire. But there was a wall of five horses in front of her and it appeared she would have way too much to do to win this race. You could be forgiven if you thought this was it; she was in this race up to her bridle. You could almost see her mind working as she quickly dipped to the open area outside to about the eight path, dispatched Colonel John, and laid down the throttle for all she was worth. She blew by Summer Bird, Gio Ponti probably never saw her, and she thundered to a full-length victory over Gio Ponti with Twice Over finishing third. In probably the last race of her career, she finished a perfect 14-0. She paid $7.60 and helped me hit the double for $96.
It was the kind of race that will send chills up your spine when you watch the replay
It was a magnificent ride by Smith, and who knew the huge mare could shoot the corner like that? Riding out, Smith kept her out past the clubhouse turn for a little peace and quiet away from the crowd, and Smith and trainer John Shireffs both said she had a lot left and that her cardiovascular came back down right away. Not even breathin’ hard.
Back at the grandstand and in the winners circle, the crowd buzzed and shrieked. Zenyatta maintained her cool. Smith, sitting atop Big Z like an aqua/pink parrot, was so happy, he just about didn’t know what to do. One thing he did do was hug Zenyatta’s neck with an undeniable affection. He couldn’t get his arms all the way around her.
From Calvin Borel and Mine That Bird and their one-note bebop in the Kentucky Derby, to Rachel Alexandra’s anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better run to Thoroughbred greatness, to Zenyatta’s thunderous exclamation point in The Biggest Race, if you love this game, you’ve got yourself all the way around this campaign. And you’ll never let go.
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Thomas Chambers is the Beachwood’s man on the rail. He brings you Track Notes every Friday. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on November 13, 2009