CLASSIC ANSWER TO AGE-OLD QUERY.Byline: KEVIN MODESTI The next two weekends mark the start of a challenging season for thoroughbred handicappers, the time when 3-year-old stars of the Triple Crown and summer classics begin to test themselves against heavyweight older horses. Are any of the current 3-year-olds good enough to beat the likes of Candy Ride and Mineshaft mine·shaft n. A vertical or sloping passageway made in the earth for finding or mining ore and ventilating underground excavations. Noun 1. in the Breeders' Cup Classic The Breeders' Cup Classic is a Grade 1 Weight for Age thoroughbred horse race for 3 years old and older run at a distance of 1¼ miles (2012 m) on dirt. It is held annually at a different racetrack in the United States or Canada as part of the Breeders' Cup. at Santa Anita Santa Anita may refer to:
Clues could be right around the corner. On Saturday, in the $500,000 Super Derby The Super Derby is an American Thoroughbred horse race held annually in September at Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, Louisiana. Inaugurated in 1980, the Super Derby is open to 3-year-olds and the distance is 1 1/8 miles on the dirt. XXIV at Louisiana Downs, the Downs, The, roadstead, c.8 mi (13 km) long and 6 mi (9.7 km) wide, between North Foreland and South Foreland, off Deal, Kent, SE England, in the English Channel. It is protected, except from strong south winds, by the Goodwin Sands and the coast. summer's final major race restricted to 3-year-olds, Travers Stakes champion Ten Most Wanted will face Soto and four others and must show he can put winning efforts back-to-back to stamp himself as elite material. A week later, on Sept. 27 in the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup The Jockey Club Gold Cup, established in 1919, is a prestigious thoroughbred flat race open to horses of either gender three-years-old and up. It is typically the main event of the fall meeting at Belmont Park, just as the Belmont Stakes is of the spring meeting and the Travers at Belmont Park in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , 3-year-old Empire Maker is scheduled to face 4-year-old Mineshaft in the generations' first major clash. A week after that, on Oct. 4 in the $500,000 Goodwood Handicap at Santa Anita, the lightly raced 3-year-old Toccet is expected to take on more accomplished older horses. Of the 19 runnings of the Breeders' Cup Classic - the biggest race of Breeders' Cup day - seven have been won by 3-year-olds. That's about as many as you'd expect since 36 percent of Classic starters have been 3-year-olds. But betting blindly on every 3-year-old in the Classic would have produced a heavier-than-average 20.3-cent loss on the dollar. Individual racehorses mature at different rates. The rule of thumb, though, says they continue to get faster and smarter through the end of their 3-year-old seasons. Since, in the fall, they're still catching up to their elders, 3-year-olds receive weight advantages of the sort that allows them to carry 122 pounds to the others' 126 in the Classic. No surprise, it usually takes a particularly strong 3-year-old to win the Classic. Indeed, there are some superstars among 3-year-old winners Proud Truth, Sunday Silence, Unbridled, A.P. Indy, Concern, Cat Thief and Tiznow. It also helps if the season's 3-year-old crop as a whole is relatively strong, tempering its members with good competition throughout the year. Proud Truth won a Classic in which 3-year-olds also finished third and fourth, Sunday Silence led a Hall of Fame exacta ex·act·a n. A method of betting, as on a horserace, in which the bettor must correctly pick those finishing in the first and second places in precisely that sequence. Also called perfecta. with 3-year-old Easy Goer, and Concern and Tiznow led 1-2-3-4 sweeps by 3-year-olds. Trying to compare the 3-year-olds of 2003 with the 4- and 5-year-olds aiming for the 1 1/4-mile Classic is complicated by the iffy if·fy adj. if·fi·er, if·fi·est Informal Doubtful; uncertain: an iffy proposition. [From if. status of Funny Cide, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winning gelding gelding castrated male horse. , and Empire Maker, the richly bred colt who denied Funny Cide in the Belmont Stakes. Trainer Barclay Tagg has indicated Funny Cide is unlikely to come to Santa Anita for the Breeders' Cup. Instead, Funny Cide, who turned in a clunker clunk·er n. Informal 1. A decrepit machine, especially an old car; a rattletrap. 2. A failure; a flop. of a third-place finish behind Peace Rules in the Haskell Invitational and then passed up the Travers for health reasons, is likely to run next in one of three races on the first weekend in October and again in the Nov. 29 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct. Tagg named the Oct. 3 Meadowlands Cup (against older horses), the Oct. 4 Kelso Handicap (older horses) on turf at Belmont and the Oct. 4 Indiana Derby (3-year-olds) as possibilities, and explained, ``I'd like to win the 3-year-old championship with him. If he wins (one of those races and the Cigar), he'd have a great shot at it.'' Empire Maker, scratched from the Travers because of a cough, put in a fast workout Monday at Belmont. But he needs another good workout this weekend before trainer Bobby Frankel will commit Empire Maker to a Jockey Club Gold Cup that includes Mineshaft and Dubai World Cup The Dubai World Cup is a Thoroughbred horse race held annually since 1996 at the Nad Al Sheba Racecourse in the city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The race is operated through the Emirates Horse Racing Authority (EHRA) whose Chairman is Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, winner Moon Ballad. If Empire Maker goes in the Gold Cup, jockey Jerry Bailey will jump off Moon Ballad to ride him. One way to compare 3-year-olds with the older horses before they face each other is to look at the Beyer speed figures the leaders of each group have been earning in races close to the Breeders' Cup Classic's 1 1/4-mile distance. Beyer figures, published in the Daily Racing Form The Daily Racing Form, LLC (DRF) is a broadsheet newspaper founded in 1894 in Chicago, Illinois by Frank Brunell. The paper publishes the past performances of race horses as a statistical service for bettors on horse racing in the United States. , try to rate horses' performances by adjusting race clockings for the varying speeds of the tracks on which they run. Top-rated 3-year-olds Funny Cide, Soto, Dynever, Ten Most Wanted and Empire Maker have been earning Beyer figures in the 111-114 range. If you assume they'll improve at a normal rate, and add a point for each month that has passed since those performances, their figures remain below the Mineshaft-Medaglia d'Oro-Congaree group's 116-118. And none of them can boast of a Beyer figure near the 123 that Candy Ride earned for winning the Pacific Classic at Del Mar - a rating that theoretically pegs him three lengths faster than the pack. Which brings up one last complication in comparing age groups: Candy Ride, having been foaled in Argentina, where they follow a Southern Hemisphere breeding calendar, is listed officially as a 4-year-old but essentially is a 3 1/2-year-old. That means he already has faced and beaten older horses but might still be improving. A tough combination. CAPTION(S): box Box: OUT OF THE GATE - Kevin Modesti |
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