Sire. That’s a great word. Simply, it means male parent, but for some reason it’s ring is so much grittier. Maybe it’s the etymology: vulgar latin (source: Merriam-Webster). In these decidedly non-feudal times, nowhere is the term sire more poignant than in horse racing. More often than not, the highly competitive colts or fillies have a story to tell with their lineage. At this year’s Kentucky Derby, the field is for the most part no different.

Take a moment to check out the dad’s associated with the Run for the Roses.

Smart Strike

Sired: Lookin At Lucky (3-1)*

Stats:

Daddy of Curlin

Mating fee jumped from 50 K to 75 K the year Curlin won the Preakness

Links:

Smart Strike a sought-after stud after Curlin wins Preakness

Candy Ride

Sired: Sidney’s Candy (5-1)

Stats:

Deemed the best horse sired by Ride on Rails, out of 362 offspring

Owned by Sid and Jenny…Craig that is

Links:

Candy Ride wiki

Jenny Craig seeking sweet treat in Kentucky Derby

Awesome Again

Sired: Awesome Act (10-1)

Stats:

Back in ’98, Awesome Again entered six races. He won them all.

Links:

Awesome Again wiki

Pulpit

Sired: Ice Box (10-1)

Stats:

In the race he was injured in before being put out to stud, Pulpit still finished fourth

Links:

Pulpit wiki

Cuvee:

Sired: Noble’s Promise (12-1)

Stats:

Nothing to write home about, except familial ties to Barbaro

Ghostzapper (stupid name)

Sired: Stately Victor (30-1)

Stats:

He was sired by Awesome Again (more points for Awesome Again)

Kitten’s Joy

Sired: Dean’s Kitten

Stats

Barbaro link alert: Kitten’s Joy is ridden regularly by Edgar Prado, who rode Barbaro to a 2006 Derby Victory. Reaching, yes.

Links:
Kitten’s Joy wiki

Sadler’s Wells

Sired: Paddy O’prado

Produced over 260 stakes winners

14 time Champion Sire in Great Britain & Ireland, given to the horse whose progeny earns the most prize money that year

Link:

Champ sire Sadler’s Wells retires (BBC)

Unbridled’s Song

Sired: Mission Impazible

Stats:

Reputation for “brittle-boned progeny” (see: Eight Belles)

Link:

Breeding of Eight Belles questioned, defended

Mineshaft

Sired: Discreetly Mine

Also sired Japan’s would-be hopeful for challenge Big Brown two-years ago, Casino Drive

Link:

Mineshaft wiki

Afleet Alex

Sired: Dublin

Stats:

Took the Preakness and Belmont in 2005

Afleet Alex wiki

Smarty Jones

Sired: Backtalk

Stats:

Winner of the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes

Link:

Smarty Jones wiki

*Odds via today’s Courier-Journal

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The Kentucky Derby kicks off Triple Crown Season in less than 10 days. I for one am already stirring up emotion that will culminate with Early Times mint juleps and a triumphant return to my friendly neighborhood OTB next weekend.

Weeks back, conversation was mounting about the prospect of a horse called Radiohead, trained by household name (to the degenerate gambler dads in said households) Rick Dutrow, running in the Derby. Radiohead fell flat in his recent performance – like if Thom Yorke replaced Flea with the bassist from Spandau Ballet for his performance at Coachella – and he’s out. Instead, Dutrow is going with Homeboykris.

From Vegas Sports Odds:

Homeboykris would be a stunning upset for this year in 2010 Kentucky Derby betting odds as he opened as a 60-1 longshot at online sportsbooks to win this year’s Run for the Roses but has gained more value and is now at 35-1. So far this year as a three year old Homeboykris has two starts with one place and total earnings of $14,000. Last year as a two year old Homeboykris had four starts with two wins and total earnings of $260,000. It is that performance as a two year old that has Homeboykris listed as a bona fide Kentucky Derby contender.

60-1 doesn’t exactly bestow confidence (maybe in the most reckless addicted gambler dads), however, come Derby Day, Homeboykris will have the backing of at least one known winner. Joe Torre owns a stake in the colt and was down in Louisville on Wednesday to watch HBK work six furlongs on the track.

Homeboykris is actually on the bubble for the race at the moment. He’s ranked 20th in the money out of the twenty horses slated to race next Saturday, with the potential that he could be bumped from the list if Devil May Care is entered in the Derby instead of the Kentucky Oaks. Tense.

So, Los Angeles Dodgers fans, when you see Torre in the dugout looking a little addled.

Know that it’s even odds that he’s thinking about Garrett Anderson’s slow start or Homeboykris’ Derby status.

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Unfortunately, I’m not a big enough horse racing nerd to know if winning a “a highly competitive second-level allowance race for 3-year-olds” two months before the Kentucky Derby is indicative of possible Derby performance (The skilled handicappers RollingStone.com seems to think so). However, I am a big enough nerd, in general, to link to a story about a horse race – second-level allowance or otherwise – strictly because the horse that won is named Radiohead.

From ESPN.com:

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. — What figured to be a highly competitive second-level allowance race for 3-year-olds at Gulfstream Park turned into a showcase for the English-bred Radiohead, who cruised to an easy victory over stablemate Homeboykris in Saturday’s third event. Radiohead was making his first start on dirt and first since being switched to trainer Rick Dutrow’s barn following his seventh-place finish in the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. He stalked the pace of the previously undefeated New York-bred General Maximus under confident handling from jockey Edgar Prado in the one-mile race, readily gained command when roused nearing the eighth pole, and was never seriously threatened thereafter, winning by 3 1/4 lengths. He was timed in 1:35.90. “It was a good day for us,” said Dutrow referring to his one-two finish in the race. “This is what I wanted to see from Radiohead. He could have gone to the lead, but I told Edgar to let the other horse go and be a measuring stick. It certainly showed he likes the dirt.”

After I invested too much time, energy and coin in attending all three events of the 2008 Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing in hope of seeing Rick Dutrow and Big Brown win the whole enchilada, I vowed to never get behind another Dutrow horse.

Still, I love Rock n’ Roll more than I hate my past disappointments and misfortune, so this could change that.

Photo via The Telegraph

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Nothing like a potential feel good story of the year that you know is going to, at the same time, rile people up. Get a load of this tale of redemption…

On April 4, 2008, thoroughbred Freedom’s Flight’s career came to an all-to-familiar halt when his leg snapped on the track at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, FL. Actually, it wasn’t a halt so to speak, he still went on to finish third in the race. After the expensive treatment to repair the injury failed, owners sold off the racehorse for a mere $500.

From MiamiHerald.com:

“They told me his racing career was over,” said [Herman] Heinlein, who owns 100 horses. He faced a choice: pay to euthanize Freedom’s Flight or, as Pinchin suggested, give him to Marian Brill, a 44-year veteran of Florida racing and a horse rescuer.


To a racehorse owner, an animal that can’t run “is a broken machine that don’t work,” Brill said. “They get rid of it.”


Heinlein says he kept title to the horse “because I didn’t want somebody to get him back to racing.”


Still a stallion, Freedom’s Flight could have undergone expensive treatment for his leg then become a breeder, but “he never proved himself as a racehorse,” said Brill, and since his famous ancestors begat hundreds of offspring, “Why breed the one that’s farther down the line?”


Brill, 58, said she “started rehabbing him” but his injuries were too daunting. Then, she said, a man whose name she didn’t know bought him for $500.


“They loaded him on a trailer and left,” she said.

According to the Herald, several months later, FF was spotted by the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Agricultural Patrol Unit tied to a tree on a “garbage feeder farm” – which is exactly what it sounds like, a farm that they cook garbage and feed it to swine. His price tag at the time had been $100.

The owner of the farm, Manuel Coto, allowed an SPCA vet to treat Freedom’s Flight for multiple ailments including “severe “rain rot,” which made him lose most of his hair, bites, wounds, severe rashes, abscesses under his hooves, detoxing from steroids, a fractured right cannon — shin — bone, and strangles, a potentially deadly, highly contagious bacterial infection.”

So far it reads like Seabiscuit, from the twisted mind of director Rob Zombie. If you’ll further indulge me, I promise it gets better.

While nursing the horse back to health, they discovered a tattoo under Freedom’s Flight’s lip that read: I35289. The Jockey Club thoroughbred registry indicated that the number revealed that he was the scion of, count em’, two Triple Crown winners: Seattle Slew, his grandpa and winner of the Triple Crown in 1977, and the legend himself, Secratariat, Freedom’s Flight’s dad.

Since the famous bloodline discovery, Freedom’s Flight has received $30,000 in vet care, and is the front runner to play Secratariat in a Disney movie. I’m hoping for a sci-fi drama – lots of scions, siars, members of the brood, prophesies being fulfilled, etc. etc.

(photos via spca-sofla.org)

Racehorse’s health restored 1 year after hellish descent (Miami Herald)

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Good luck making money on this one…

According to The Online Wire, The Belmont Stakes are currently giving Kentucky Derby Champ Mine That Bird 6/5 odds as the favorite to win the last leg of the Triple Crown. Not exactly a long shot herself, Preakness champ Rachel Alexandra is next up at 5/2.

Some of the other’s getting consideration from the handicappers include Dunkirk – 4/1, the highly touted Charitable Man – 9/2, and the R&B sensation Chocolate Candy – 14/1.

Last year, Triple Crown Contender Big Brown hit the gate at Belmont Park as a 4/1 favorite before laying a huge egg, finishing dead last, and costing me $80 bucks crushing my dreams . Mine That Bird won’t get to this level of lopsided, but with Rachel Alexandra’s cachet continuing to slip due to the uncertainty that she’ll even race it wouldn’t surprise me if MTB entered next week’s race with an overwhelming amount of hype to live up to.


Da’Tara loyalists love Luv Gov at 40-1.

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Years from now, I plan to sit my kids down (appropriately after yet another family outing to the local OTB) and tell them the tale of the most dangerous sporting event I ever went to. This story will have nothing to do with the hoards of Yankees-Red Sox games I’ve attended. Even at there most explosive, those games pale in comparison to the 2008 Preakness.

Last year, I did a three-part blog series for Yahoo! Sports chronicling the three trips I made to the sites of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. It was an ultimate sports odyssey, only problem is that the second leg in Pimlico has nothing to do with sports (see my full post on The Preakness on Yahoo!)….

After conquering the Derby, I felt sufficiently conditioned to take on the Preakness. But, now, after taking down the Preakness, I’m wondering if I didn’t inadvertently test out of the first year of SWAT school. Louisville gets wild no doubt, but Preakness has one speed: zero to volatility, in an instant. To its credit, the Kentucky Derby was also impressively reckless. This, however, is Gomorrah…

You think I’m joking? I am not joking. Let’s take a look at some of the more memorable moments of Preakness past…

(more…)

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