A few years ago, Joey asked me about my schedule in mid June.
“Well, I’ve got Royal Ascot.”
“You’re not going.”
“Well no, but I’m still…”
Nothing like a reality check from your big brother. No, I didn’t go that summer and I’m not going this summer. Still, each summer the schedule centers around Royal Ascot, catching races between a bevy of other tasks and assignments. As Wesley Ward learned on his first trip to Royal Ascot, “There is nothing like it.”
From the couch, perhaps, there are other things like it but the television coverage still produces great theatre. Watching Jukebox Jive lead a parade of colors up and over the green undulations of 2 ½ miles in the Ascot Stakes, wow, that’s Shakespeare to us. I took a quick break from selling horses and Saratoga advertising and Annie took a quick respite from riding horses, renovating a house and managing equine insurance accounts to watch the long, deliberate plot play out in the Ascot Stakes. We both smiled and uttered, “Wow” as the field rolled toward us and then away from us, close up from the inner rail camera that provides Ken Burns’ scenes.
Some day, we’ll get there. Some day. Maybe with a runner or two.
Clancy Bloodstock enjoyed a stellar week as graduates Eons and Gotham Gala each won stakes at Delaware Park. Eons won his third race in a row and registered his first stakes win in his first try. We found the son of Giant’s Causeway at Keeneland September Sales in 2017. Nice horse. Congratulations to Mark Grier, Arnaud Delacour and Trevor McCarthy.
Three days later, Gotham Gala won her stakes debut dominating the Obeah Stakes for Grier, Delacour and jockey Daniel Centeno. The 4-year-old daughter of Smart Strike came from Keeneland in 2016, a member of our first yearling class of four horses. She registered the seventh win from that group and first stakes win.
There is nothing like watching horses develop into what you thought you saw on the catalogue page or the walking ring so many years ago. It’s a long, slow process and patience is key.
Riverdee runs Archanova in the maiden hurdle at Monmouth Park Friday. On the other end of the spectrum, I’m hoping he produces what I thought I saw in long-distance races on the flat over the past few seasons. So far, he’s won a point-to-point and finished third at Nashville.
Overfilled, 10 promising maidens get to run in the $30,000 race while 14 others wait for another day. At the moment, steeplechasing doesn’t have a participation problem, it’s got an opportunity problem. Hard to solve especially in these trying times for all of Thoroughbred racing.
