Our sport thrives on prediction; Our business, based on results. But it can really take a while to deselect one from the other – especially when even a ranked race like the GI Travers S. is not only an end but a potential means to exists for anyone’s entire program of luck. enough to own the winner.
In principle, the few brief minutes dividing prediction with results in Saratoga on Saturday would be visible history in the making. From the many hopes and benefits for the adult Purebloods entering the portal, a single one would suddenly be petrified into the population.
In reality, however, it’s very rare that we can know exactly what we might be watching. As for volunteering for a stallion of the right stature, for example, it must be admitted that Travers overall share a rather patchy record with the GI Kentucky Derby on both sides of the last horse to win both. two, Street Sense in 2007. Let’s get rid of Bernardini, who won the Travers the year before, and only recently have a few young stallions begun to solidify things again for either race.
Bitterly, it seems the Arrogate tree’s spectacular flowering in 2016 is a legitimate signpost – pointing the way down a clean plunge from a cliff. Bidding for his final crop in Keeneland in the next few days will be competing a legacy that has grown so rapidly, from an unsurprisingly slow start, through charismatic efforts. of Secret Oath and now Artorius.
In the present moment, Artorius truly feels like a prime example of how we tend to see the future through the lens of the past. He injects a rather compelling story into Travers, which is even more lightly raced than his realm when picking up pieces against exhausted Triple Crown protagonists. And, beyond the elite Ghostzapper racemare. However, it’s almost as if the high emotional stakes were somehow loaded into odds that almost hinted at a predetermined fate.
However, who can predict the future, when even the past can take so long to piece together? Of course, no one could have foreseen the tragic end of Arrogate’s story. But most of us are pretty sure where we stand Gunmanwhen he staggered in third in Travers, 15 lengths behind Arrogate: a horse held out his hand, early enough to run third in the Derby but seems to have dwindled by this point. Gunman persisted, however, and after watching Arrogate reach the bottom of a barrel – perhaps a barrel of oil – in Dubai, Gunman persists with the sequence of five Grade Is with a total length of 27 1/2.
And here he is now, getting ready to mark one of the most notable stud launches in recent times with two runner-ups – and let’s not forget he’ll have a third, but because of the local ban on Taiba’s trainers – in a race that provides a pretty instructive snapshot of the changing landscape among Kentucky stallions. Another young gun, Start up, the field a boy has had in mind for this race ever since, the flirtation fleeting with an uncontested crowning in the second leg at home in the Derby; while Not this timesolidifying his own stellar start, matches Gunman with two: Epicenter, whose candidacy for divisional titles makes me feel that Rank is quite imperative, and Ain’t Life Grand.
Of the established elites, really, only Medaglia d’Oro could muster a contender to compete his 2002 success in Gilded Age of Outsiders. To be fair, he also has a stake in the proceedings through Ain’t Life Grand’s dam, Cat Moves. This is the only mare owned by Peggy and Ray Shattuck, the hometown purebred GII Iowa Derby winner would hardly have as amazing results here as Rich Strike, of course a Travers winner in Keen Ice, return to Churchill in May. While expectations for Rich Strike seem to be pretty much back to what they had on Derby day, Ain’t Life Grand announced itself in Saratoga with a 45.88 meltdown workout last week. , the fastest was 79 beats that morning.
Ain’t Life Grand with Tammy Fox on board | Sarah Andrews
Surely the game could do with another fairy tale. There’s no need to worry about the potential for awkwardness, in showing our best to the outside world, when three out of eight runners are being bullied by a riding coach. such annoying attention. Having been raised locally, this race is the one he will likely prize perhaps far ahead of any other. But you get it: we all have to accept that human predictability is markedly limited; and that fulfillment belongs in the complex, unpredictable realm of outcomes.
All that aside, my own predictions are as stubborn as ever. As Chad Brown will agree, he is just one of many whose dreams focus on these three horses. And our community could not have looked for a more flattering representation, for those beyond, than Brereton C. Jones and his family at Airdrie Stud, the breeders of Zandon. And if this pony can mark the ranch’s 50th anniversary by finally gathering it all here, even larger laurel wreaths will be laid right down the road at Keeneland. in the fall.
Yes, I know: all I’m doing is choosing a different scenario from the one that seems to favor Artorius very much. I’m promoting Zandon’s apparent need for a specific tactical scenario and a different kind of cat-and-mouse race in his most recent start, into a plot that’s neat and balanced. far more deserving than the tendency to be mesmerized by this insensitive, unpredictable world. But first and foremost we are all sports fans. We all enjoyed our expectations while it lasted. And we can keep dealing with all those business outcomes until we know what they really are.
