Drakon

Congratulation to the folks at Zilla Racing for winning a nice allowance race on the opening day of Saratoga. That is not an easy thing to do for a smaller stable.

That race made me think one more time about a horse they bought at the OBS sale and are still offering 1% of for $3,400. They named the horse Drakon. Zilla also bought a nice Nyquist yearling for $200,000, that is now working well under the name Whiskey Lullaby.

Drakon is a son of First Samurai, who is a son of Giant’s Causeway. Not This Time has stepped in to be the heir to Giant’s Causeway. Brody’s Cause, Creative Cause, Carpe Diem, and Fed Biz are not making the cut. First Samurai is just holding on. There were only 3 to choose from at the OBS sale. FS was a precocious juvenile that did stretch out to win the Fountain of Youth, but not much else. I still consider him just a “run early” sire.

Drakon worked a sharp 10.0 at the sale, and Mike Piazza from Zilla reported some nice stride metrics from that workout. Zilla did pay $200,000, and I think they reported that Liz Crow was the under-bidder.

The mare Fox Chapel was an unplaced daughter of sprinter/miler El Corredor (by Mr. Greeley.) The nick was a D.

In many ways this is a perfect “athlete” where you try to ignore the pedigree. If I liked sprinting horse from training sales, this would be hard to pass up. You can feel the enthusiasm in Mike’s texts as the horse begins to work for Brad Cox. My discipline tells me “no”, but if I were just playing by feel the answer might be “yes”.

Drakon ran 3 times and was never better than 3rd. He has not worked for a few months. I feel bad for the good folks at Zilla.