Both Sis City and Wonder Lady Anne L had their 3-year-old geldings by Distorted Humor win in the last several days. I connect the two mares strongly. At first I wasn't quite sure why. I knew both were Rick Dutrow fillies, and both I thought unlikely wonders, although on review, I see that Wonder Lady Anne L was always quite nice and never ran for a tag. I thought maybe both were in the same crop, and Sis City was 'A string' and Wonder Lady Anne L. 'B string,' but they were actually a crop apart. Both won the Demoiselle; I think that's the magnetic force pushing them together in my mind -- what pushes the parallels over the edge for me into eeriness.
What's interesting and maybe surprising about their qualified broodmare success so far, of course, is that they were Dutrow horses. Because of all of his charges' positive tests, not even the naive will argue it is far-fetched to argue that they were "on something." Sis City typified patterns many, including myself, believe go along with drug use: she ran some monster races, winning the Gulfstream Davona Dale by 16 and the Ashland by 10 1/2, but she wasn't generally near that caliber. She had the infamous maiden claiming start, giving the Dutrow barn the oppotunity to pick her up.
Sis City's 3-year-old, Second City, appears to feature quite an interesting story. He won the grade III British Columbia Derby on Sunday, running his record to 4 for 4. Those wins have come at Penn National, Charles Town (twice), and Hastings. He's done all of the racing and winning since July 12. And yes, like his dam, his first win came for maiden claiming, maiden claiming 25k. He wasn't even favored, won by 8, and Jamie Ness took the wrong first-timer starter, the Tale of the Cat firster Dubonnet Red (although he was a 5-length winner in his next start, which came last Thursday). Second City went back to his original barn, Stephanie Beattie's. The ceiling might not go any higher; I mean, when the race is just the fourth fastest mile-and-an-eighth race at Hastings on the day, the odds still seem stacked against you. But he's a great story.
There wasn't much attention paid to the Wonder Lady Anne L, Distorted Dream, in his first couple of races, where he ran respectably but didn't do better than 5th. But in his return from a 2+-month layoff Wednesday, people seemed to know he was a different horse, as he just ceded favoritism to Pletcher's Slash Five, who had gotten an 83 Beyer in his last. (To back up what I'm saying, Distorted Dream was 8-1 on the morning line, Slash Five 2-1; odds at post time were 9/5 for Distorted Dream, and 3/2 for Slash Five). Distorted Dream emerged with sharp works at Belmont in August, and he added blinkers Wednesday. I don't want to suggest he's a potential star, because I'm not convinced he is, but he beat Slash Five by 3 1/2 lengths, probably never being completely set down and certainly never being whipped. I got an 87.9 figure for him.
Outside of the fact that both were stars and Distorted Humor is a hot shot in the breeding shed, it appears a coincidence that both mares went to Distorted Humor in 2008. Or at least it was a coincidence from the standpoint of ownership; Wonder Lady Anne L was going to go to Distorted Humor, being partially owned by WinStarm, but Sis City was owned by Stonerside when Distorted Humor was chosen for her, When Darley subsumed Stonerside later in 2008, they became official breeders of Distorted Dream.
The point of this post is not to say that Dutrow didn't abuse the administration of medication, nor that the medications he administered didn't make much difference in the mares' performance, only to sat that there is a lot we don't understand. I will say that I think discounting or endorsing horses based on whether you believe they were clean or not clean does not bring you any closer to making good decisions. I just don't see a correlation with the believed status of individual horses and what they go on to do as producers.
Let's take the stallion side: Saint Liam, a Dutrow horse, was going to be really good. One who is impressive now with his first crop is Frost Giant. A Dutrow horse, and really not even that good of a one; he might be a much better sire.
No comments:
Post a Comment