The Last Meow

No need to search for a title here, as the horse's name hints at what is significant about her: The Last Meow is apparently the youngest (and therefore the last, in a certain way of thinking) of Storm Cat's 1412 foals, and she produced an exciting debut, winning a maiden special weight at Gulfstream Parks on Friday by 7 1/2 lengths in very swift time. She didn't change leads, which I didn't like, and was the opposite of light on her feet. She's trained by Pletcher, and is out of Richwoman, a precocious filly who had stakes wins or placings five times in just seven career starts. Richwoman was 21 years Storm Cat's junior (talk about being young enough to be his daughter!)

The racing gods must be smiling on Storm Cat. In recent years, his proportion of runners as good as The Last Meow may well be is very low.

I was happily surprised by Maggie Slew, too, who was Seattle Slew's last foal, also in a very small crop: she placed in the graded Gardenia and Iowa Oaks in her racing career. It seems a crime to underbreed a mare with such historical significance, but Maggie Slew was sent to Swifty Farm's stallion Pass Rush, producing a colt named Mack the Slew. I don't whether to be more or less adamant in my feelings, given that Mack the Slew won a couple of Indiana-bred stakes last year. On the one hand, the pairing seems to have worked out, but on the other, maybe the success indicates what Maggie Slew could do with a "real" stallion. She is young; maybe she will still have her chance.