Representing Live Your Dreams Racing Stable, Baffert claimed the 4-year-old filly Lutess from a Santa Anita $12,500 claiming race on Monday. This strikes me as an unusual thing for him to do, to fish at the bottom of the pond. His stable isn't comprised of $12,500 claimers. Maybe he took this filly as a favor to the owners.
Oddly, Dave's Revenge finished 2nd in the same race. She was 4th in the 2008 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, which was quite a fast race, and only beaten a nose for 3rd that day. Yet she's gone on to run in 11 claimimg races, many of them cheap, and several more optional claimers, I think, with the tag active. I can't imagine she would have been in any of these races with an extra foot of speed on that day three years ago. If she does go on to be a broodmare, I wonder if anyone besides me will remember the 4th in the Breeders' Cup?
A legitimate question is if buyers should care. Even if Dave's Revenge had been 3rd in that Breeders' Cup, should they care? What is a better reflection of her ability: Breeders' Cup placed horse, or $25,000 claimer/ first-level allowance kind of horse? Would the Breeders' Cup placing signify more than a pretty line in the catalog?
Dave's Revenge has earned $242,160. The 4th in the Breeders' Cup was worth $102,000. Certainly someone has to look at that earnings number and think that she experienced some real success at some point, despite the fact that her name's not in black. The $138,000 in addition to the Breeders' Cup money also isn't anything to sneeze at. She's by The Cliff's Edge and doesn't have much speed, but it wouldn't be a surprise if she passed along some ability to her offspring.
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