Mr Lexis Goes Postward in Our First Run at Arlington

Mr. Lexis, the horse we manage for CAC Racing LLC,  heads postward this afternoon versus eight foes and while he was installed as the tepid 3-1 morning line favorite, this race did not come up easy.  Here’s a look at the field:

1 MR LEXIS (BRINSON/EMIGH)

2 Five Green Stars (Block/Esquivel) – State bred allowance winner had a real tough time against open company at the Fairgrounds.  While he’s back home and dropping into claiming company, he may need to face lower.

3 Top Gato (Mason/Felix) – He ran a very professional race last out over the Oaklawn Park dirt track in his first race off the claim for the new connections. This is a pretty good step up but he has 2 wins in only 5 lifetime starts.

4 Love you Mon (Williamson/Geroux) – Emigh came off of this one to ride us but Geroux is no slouch.  He’s won a few times here at Arlington, albeit at lower levels.  He did show speed before fading 1^st off the layoff and could be in line to step up a bit here.

5 Kitten’s Song (Haran/Murrilo) – Well bred colt won at this level before on this track, though over a yielding strip.  Firing first off the layoff is tough.

6 Armature (Rousell/Gudiel) – I actually like this one’s chances.  He hasn’t run too badly recently and the score at the Fairgrounds two back was nice.  Our saving grace may be that he doesn’t seem to like the Arlington track, though those races were all in maidens before he had a chance to figure things out.

7 Poker Player (Catalano/Hill) – Won the Grade 3 Bourbon Stakes at Keeneland and ran in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf that same year.  Now he is a couple of seasons removed from that but as recently as December 27 he was still thought highly enough to run in a stake.  He didn’t fare well in a Turfway optional claimer so now he heads into straight claimers to try and get a win out of him. Either he is the class of the field or completely washed up.

8 Brim (Rodriguez/Homeister Jr.) – You can probably draw a line through that last dirt debacle – this one clearly belongs on the turf.  Last competitive race was a win at the Fairgrounds in a $15,000 conditioned claimer.

9 Badger Bay (Williamson/Perez) – This one is entered for the main track only and with the weather the next two days predicted to be sunny and dry, don’t expect to see him.

So we’re looking at a probable field of 8 and I have two concerns: a complete lack of any pace in the race and I don’t know what to make of Poker Player.

On pace, maybe Top Gato or Kitten’s Song could cut the fractions but if you look back at our boy’s races 3 and 4 back, he was mighty close to the lead.  A good break and the inside post and we could find ourselves on the lead and hope that Emigh can ration his speed.  With a field full of closers if he can crawl the fractions without frustrating the horse we could be looking good.

As for Poker Player, my guess is that he’s done. As a colt, I would think if he doesn’t win here and turn things around he may be retired.  He is a graded stakes winner from Harlan’s Holiday out of a mare by Preakness and Gotham winner Red Bullet.  He may try stud duty before they totally collapse the value on him by running in low level claiming races.  Then again this kind of company may be just what he needs but his BrisNet speed figures say that while he may belong in here, he doesn’t tower over.

Good luck everyone!!

Bad Bows and Good Bows

BOWED TENDON AND BOW OUT

We had it all planned out: Ellie would head south and not miss any training this spring;  she had grown up and, more importantly, she seemed to have matured between her 3 and 4 year old years; we now knew she would be a router and not a sprinter so we could get her ready accordingly.  Yup we had it all planned out.

Then we get “the call”.  Well, not THE call, but a crappy one none-the-less.  Her trainer had come in that morning and felt some heat just below her knee.  She was a bit tender but not enough to take a bad step.  Still, it bore watching so we waited and the first few days it seemed like maybe she just slept on herself wrong.  Then the heat and soreness were back and an ultrasound was done.

She bowed a tendon.

A human way to think of it is tendonitis or a tendon tear.  However you look at it, though, it is NOT good for a racehorse.  The prescription?  Ninety days of stall rest and then a slow resumption of activity in after taking another picture to make sure that the damage is healed.

As a Minnesota bred who probably can’t compete in open company outside of the state you might as well have told us her career was over.  Which it now is.

There is no way that we could have her back for this season and that meant another full year on the bench and it wasn’t fair to her partners to put them through that.  Who knows what would happen to this poor, snakebit mare next!?  She had a tough season at 2 with shins, she didn’t do well at 3 and now, with her 4-year old season closed, it’s time to find her a new job.  We’ll get her rehabbed and then we will see what the future has in store for her.  It’s part of our responsibility as owners and one that we take seriously.

TAKE A BOW FOR YOUR DEBUT

Mr. Lexis was purchased privately out of California a few weeks ago and shipped to trainer Clay Brinson at Hawthorne Race Course.  Mr. Lexis is a lightly raced 4-year old gelding out of the Valid Appeal mare Tracy V and sired by Badge of Silver.  He was bred by former Governor Brereton Jones in KY and sold for $45,000 at Keeneland.

He went and raced in Peru where he missed by a neck in a Grade 1 as a maiden but did finally break his maiden in South America and followed that up with an allowance win before shipping to the US to work under trainer Peter Miller.

After 10 starts at Santa Anita and Del Mar without a win against allowance and mid-level claimers, we picked him up and sent him east where he looks to make his first start Saturday in a conditioned allowance over the turf at Hawthorne.  He was installed as the tepid 7/2 morning line favorite so we should get a pretty good handle on what this group has on its hands.

When one door closes, another opens.  The door has closed on Ellie but now opens for Mr Lexis.  The racing cycle rolls on.