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For some, it's a goodbye to Dubai |
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3/25/2006 9:35:49 AM |
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 FORT WORTH, Texas - Saturday might be the one day of the year when horse racing's fans can give thanks for the modern shift in the sport's economics.
Curse it the other 364 days, toss rotten vegetables at it, draw devil's horns atop its greedy head, but on Saturday pause for a thankful moment to consider that America's best racehorses aren't in Dubai. Not even for $21.25 million.
Yes, Saturday will be the world's richest day of racing (much of it simulcast at Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie, by the way), and the $6 million Dubai World Cup is the richest race.
But given the modern economics, the very best American horses generally enjoy their richest paydays when they're done racing, not at the racetrack, even if the track is Nad Al Sheba.
That's why somebody can pay $16 million for an unraced 2-year-old even though no horse ever has amassed such a fortune racing. That's why most of the best 3-year-olds will shun the Florida Derby on April 1 at Gulfstream Park despite its $1 million enticement. And that's why America's best racehorses aren't in Dubai.
Twenty, 30 or even 50 million dollars could await the next superstar stallion. In recent years, these dazzling dollars have attracted many outstanding racehorses, and a few potentially great ones, into premature retirement.
Such dollars await Kentucky Derby winners and champions; they await horses that have an array of accomplishments to complement their fashionable pedigrees.
But it has been 50 years since a horse (Needles) that had not raced in the previous four weeks won the Kentucky Derby. And so why jeopardize the lollapalooza by using the Florida Derby as a final Triple Crown prep?
It has been 10 years since an American horse (Cigar) went to Dubai and returned to win a championship. After Dubai, they are generally spent; the list is long of those that were never the same after their sojourn. Roses In May, for example, won last year's World Cup and never raced again.
And so thank the perversity of the new economics, which probably saved the best horses for America. The American horses in Dubai are basically those for whom no lollapalooza is possible, those for whom Saturday's races represent the opportunity of a lifetime.
Nowhere else can sprinters race for $2 million, and so five American horses are in the Golden Shaheen, including Gaff, who's trained by Steve Asmussen of Arlington and owned in partnership by Bill Heiligbrodt of Houston, and Thor's Echo, who set the pace in last year's Lone Star Derby.
The Tin Man, an 8-year-old gelding, is going for one more big payday in the $5 million Duty Free, a one-mile turf event. Relaxed Gesture and Mustanfar will take on the great Ouija Board in the $5 million Sheema Classic.
The best American in the $6 million feature is probably Brass Hat, a 5-year-old gelding with no lollapalooza potential. He fractured an ankle while finishing ninth as the 2-1 favorite in the 2004 Lone Star Derby and didn't race again for 13 months. But having won three in a row, including the Donn Handicap at Gulfstream, the admirable stretch-runner is in the best form of his life.
Also among those entered in the World Cup are Magna Graduate, who finished fourth in last year's Lone Star Derby; Wilko, who won the 2004 Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Lone Star; and Super Frolic, who's owned by Ro Parra of Austin.
NO CONTENDER - Strong Contender was expected to use Saturday's $500,000 Lane's End Stakes at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., as a prep for the Kentucky Derby. But the field was limited to 12 based on earnings, and with a modest bankroll of $36,000, the unbeaten colt didn't make the cut.
Without him, the field is, to be kind, a little short on Triple Crown potential. Superfly, who couldn't win an allowance race at Gulfstream Park, is the 7-2 favorite. The most intriguing horse in the race is Silent Times, an English stakes winner making his American debut.
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