Taking a Mulligan

All good golfers know that when you playing a practice round, it is a good idea to take mulligans. There is little sense in playing out of the deep rough when you are just practicing. In that spirt, i am going to add 3 more horses to my imaginary stable.

I learned this morning that I need to study each sire a little more carefully, and not reley on quick judgements. I have been handicapping fro 23 years, but I almost always ignore Graded Stakes races with small fields. I am searching through the field of 12 $6,000 non-winners of 2 claiming races at Calder while most others are a watching a 5 horse Grade 1 at Churchill. Until I started to try to understand the sales, i could care less about who won XYZ Stakes race. That means I am woefully ignorant of the racing history of many very good horses.

I always assumed that Twirling Candy was just a cheap ripoff of his dad Candy Ride. Candy Ride was a great miler, but I did not consider his offspring as stamina horses. I figured Twirling Candy was the same story, but I was clearly wrong. Twirling Candy only won a maiden race at 2, but then improved steadily and won the Hollywood Gold Cup at 1 1/4 miles when he was 4.

Twirling Candy has just become my favorite stamina sire. I should have known that before the Ocala and Timonium sales, but I did not. I am going to take my time machine back a few weeks and add 3 Twirling Candy’s to my stable.

1. #1008 from Ocala – Twirling Candy – Even Song by Street Cry – $75,000 – bought by the smart guys at Exline Racing
2. #105 from Timonium – Twirling Candy – Margarita Friday by Johannesburg – $100,000 – bought by Liz Crow the agent for Ten Strike among others
3. #64 from Timonium – Twirling Candy – Kiamika by With Approval – $85,000 – bought by Mark Glatt as agent for ????, this is my favorite

There were more expensive to choose from, but these are the type of horse i might have bought.

Twirling Candy moves right to the top of my favorite sires list. I really like the female side with Arlington Million winner Chester House, and the dam of Empire Maker the mare Toussaud. I am still learning some of these sires.