A Little Break - And Now We Race

It looks like Fizzy Pop will be back racing again Friday night. We are entering today for a $35,000 Optional Claiming race going a mile and a sixteenth over the turf. Fiz doesn't fit the Optional conditions so he'll be in for a tag. I don't have a whole lot heartburn over this as he was a $10,000 purchase and has won over $25,000 for us so far. Should he get claimed at $35,000 I think I can legitimately call this group a success. In addition to the money already in the bank a claim without a win would top the bank account out at around $50,000. Not bad for a group that started with under $20,000. Again, with those numbers I'm not afraid to lose Fiz and that's not a bad chunk of change to go hunting again.

The one concern here is that this group turns up too tough for Fiz. That is entirely possible. He last raced and won at $25,000 so this is not out of the realm of possibility for him. The bigger issue we have had the last month or so has been $25,000 races that have not filled. We could have taken the risk and waited until next week and tried to enter him again in a $25,000 race, but what if it didn't fill again? Then we wasted another two weeks and his layoff has grown to almost 60-days and all the while he is spitting out bullet works like he did on Monday (four furlongs, :48.38). He's ready to race now and has earned a shot. Friday night we'll try to give it to him.

UPDATE

Hosed. The $35,000 race didn't fill. Now we have two options...well, really three: a starter allowance on Saturday where we would meet up with Onotheregoestokyo, another horse in the Rhone stable that is, on paper, stronger than Fizzy (though we would get 5 pounds); a $25,000 claiming race next weekend (which very likely might not fill); and a $20,000 claiming race over the dirt, short and a level down from where we just won (tough to win a short one for our closer and we're screaming 'please claim me' - which we're not ready to do...well, at least not at $20,000). Decisions, decisions. I will get with Bernell later this afternoon and come up with something. We may just go after 'tokyo Saturday...