I guess that I understand the attraction of 2 year old racing much better after watching it so closely for the last 6 months. Juvenile racing adds plenty of excitement to the game after the Triple Crown season ends.
Even though I now understand juvenile racing better, I am still pretty sure I do not really like it. In my ideal world every horse would start at 3, and this push to prepare horses early would be eliminated. But luckily for most I will not be appointed world leader any time soon.
Juvenile Colts – The crazy fast pace of this race makes it difficult to draw conclusions. Are we 100% sure that Jackie’s Warrior cannot get two turns? Is Essential Quality a good horse, or did just pick up the pieces in a race that collapsed? Is Rombauer the best closer? What were the connections of Classier and Likeable trying to do?
How many of the 14 runners will make it to the Derby? My under/over is 2.5
The race created more questions than answers.
7 of the 14 horses got there for less than $150,000, either by cheap purchases or inexpensive sires. That does hold out hope for the little guy.
Juvenile Fillies – I guess I was surprised that only 7 entered. Where are all the other fillies? Did COVID really effect racing that much? Without the chance to be a sire, are fillies prepped that differently?
The winner, Vequist, was a $120,000 RNA as hip #1036 at Keeneland. Someone called Swilcan Stable raced him at Parx, and sold part to Gary Barber. This shadowy private sale market is a great unknown.
Why should I ever buy a horse from Swilcan again, if they will not sell me the good ones? Or maybe could have bought the winner for $130,000. I need to understand this better.
Only 1 of the 7 was a bargain horse. Simply Ravishing, by $5,000 Laoban, got a bad trip and could still be a good horse. What should we make of the pricy Princess Noor? Andy Beyer certainly had the last laugh. Maybe the well bred Girl Daddy will be the best long term.
Juvenile Turf races – What a mess. These 3 races were about 33% fancy euros with no early speed, 33% expensive horses, and the rest were bargain horses. Many of the fancy horses were from the Wesley Ward 2 year old “factory”.
Other than Golden Pal and Battleground my under/over for these horses to be back in the BC next year is 1.5
Two year old turf racing looks to me like a random number generator.
Eclipse had 2 runners, and West Point, Donegal, and Ironhorse each had one runner in the turf races. None did better than 5th.
Buying A Race Horse 