Weekend Review

Weekend Overview: Calder does a fair bit for winter racing at the end of the calender year with their Grand Slam cards and racing fans were treated to yet another interesting day from Florida. Electrify and Paradise Dancer both took main track stakes at Calder and while neither is a true top class horse both deserve a nice victory now and then. But the two best horses in action this weekend both ran at Hollywood and Citronnade and Country Star put on a nice show for their fans.

Performance of the Week: It has to be Country Star. The Hollywood Starlet was at least as impressive as any 2yo race I've seen this year. She was fairly wide throughout but her trip was fairly non-descript. Even as they swung off the far turn she did necessarily look like the winner. Grace and Power was making a huge rally from the back and was the most eye catching runner at that stage but all at once the race was over. Grace and Power did continue her run and finish up powerfully but visually she appeared to slow down in comparison to Country Star who simply accelerated away and easily held her safe. The more we see of Country Star the more there is to be impressed about.

Flop of the Weekend: Soldier's Dancer was stepping up in trip to 12f but his connections had to be very disappointed with the way he ran in the W.L McKnight. He never got in the running and looked nothing like the tiger he was in his last two starts. Perhaps he's just tired after a long campaign or maybe it was just one of those days. At any race it was hugely disappointing from a horse who seemed to be getting better with each race.

TCR Mover’s and Shakers: Citronnade and Country Star both made some noise in their reepective divisions. Citronnade's win in the Dahlia moved her from 3rd to 2nd in the Femal Turf division. It likely won't be anough to get her an award since she is not a popular public choice but she has had a very fine year and led this division for much of the first half of the year. Country Star looks like an emerging star and has vaulted to 2nd place in the Two Year Old Female Division. Although she may arguably have more talent than Indian Blessing I think the ranking is correct in stating that she is less accomplished at this point.

Tip O’the Cap: This goes to Canadian Eugene Melnyk for his fantastic week. His excellent filly Sealy Hill was rewarded for her superb season with a trio of Sovereign awards including Horse of the Year. Melnyk himself took the top owner award and he even managed a stakes win at the Fair Grounds with Sterwins. I suppose his great week would also have include his Ottawa Senators going undefeated in their last five games.

KC Handicapping: Sterwins was bet down to 3/1 favoritism and won like he should have so while I was pleased with the result I wasn't too happy to lose a few bucks on the price. BR's Girl and Meribel continued with their losing ways. Both look like horses who lack the mental ability to win. The miss of the weekend was Redaspen in the La Prevoyante. Three weeks agi in this space I wrote that Redaspen was a great win bet next time out. But when I saw that she was lining up against Dalvina at a distance far beyond anything she had tried before I chickened out and had to watch her win nicely at 8/1.

Cumulative record of selected horses: 3(3)-1-0-1 (+$2.20 +36.67% ROI)
Overall record: 440(202)-79-74-65 (-$56.20 -6.38% ROI)