Horses A ss of the Year 2006 - nominations
 

This is a new thread where we post who should get the
Horses A ss of the Year award.
to be eligible to win, you must be active in the horse industry.

POSTERS on internet boards are NOT in the horse industry.

my nomination goes to the connections of wilko (reddam) for entering the horse in a 1 turn mile at belmont first back from dubai.

at the end of the thread we will electa winner.

Shoot! Up until I read that I was planning on nominating myself.

I would go with Team Tristar Stable and trainer Joseph A. Lostritto who are the connections of Platinum Couple. After their horse finished 10 1/2 lengths beind in the Wood Memorial, and 22 1/2 lengths behind in the Preakness, these geniuses thought the best place for this allowance-caliber horse was.......you guessed it......the Belmont Stakes, where he finished a hopelessly beaten 7th.

The nutcase qwner of the nice 3yr olds that fired his trainer and proceded to make a farce of his stable.

i think you are talking about achilles of troy's connections,
don't know his name either .

Paragallo?

I definitely woulndn't knock Reddam. He's doing incredibly well. He won a Grade I over the weekend with Dancing Edie. Everything he buys turns to gold. He bought Sharp Lisa off a maiden win at Calder. She ended up winning a Grade I for him. He bought Wilko from Europe. Wilko wasn't even a really good horse over there. Wilko ended up winning a Grade I for him.
I agree with you that the distance of a flat mile is probably not Wilko's best distance, but he did win a Grade I at 1 1/16 miles. In addition, Reddam likes to take chances sometimes and run in tough spots. Wilko's value as a stallion would have gone way up if he would have won that mile race, so they figured it was worth taking a shot.
When you run in ambitious spots, you will look foolish sometimes, but sometimes the payoff is huge. I thought they were crazy taking the horse to Dubai. I thought it seemed like way too tough of a spot. They were right, I was wrong. Wilko ran 3rd and got moved up to 2nd and took home a cool $1.2 million for that 2nd place finish.

The guys from Dubai that stole the big check from Brass Hat. No bigger injustice than that.

The owners of Arlington Park.

while i agree reddam has done wonders , especiallywith wilko,
a 1 turn mile. grade1, i think first back from dubai was a bit of a stretch.

They hardly stole it. They still had to pay out the money. It's not like it does them any good to give 2nd place to money to Wilko rather than Brass Hat. Dubai didn't benefit by disqualifying BH.
In addition, their medictaion rules are clear-cut. BH came up positive so he had to get disqualified. If he didn't get disqualified, the owners of the horses who finished behind him would have had grievances against Dubai.
The only reason that there is any controversy about the decision is because the connections of BH say that they followed the medication guidelines they were given by Dubai. That seems very unfair if they followed the guidelines and then got disquailified for following the guidelines. I don't doubt that they followed the guidelines but I don't think we know for a fact that they did. They say they followed the guidelines and they probably did, but we don't know for sure that they did.

Yes, that was a very tough spot.

didn't the third place check then go to him ??

Since BH tested positive for a drug that is prohiibited in Dubai(all drugs are prohibited there), BH got disqaulified from all purse money. That means that all the other horses get moved up. Wilko finished 3rd so he got moved up to 2nd. The horse that finished 4th got moved up to 3rd. The horse that finished 5th got moved up to 4th and so on.

The third place check went to Pletcher's Magna Graduate as he originally ran fourth. Brass Hat was dq'd and finished last of 11

i thought the shiek somehow got some money out of the deal,
opps..

my nominations...

1. Anyone who thinks slot machines are good for horse racing. Watch some of these 2nd and 3rd tier tracks (PennNat, Philly, etc...) go out of business under the debt service they're taking on. How the hell will slot machines improve the quality of racing in NY?

2. Whoever convinced the Jockeys Guild not to conduct a real search for their ED. Look what they got.

3. Hank Goldberg. Just because.

4. All the "horse analysts" in the world who don't know their elbow from their ........

5. Watchmaker. Speaking of horse analysts, is this guy ever right?

Agree. When this blubbering buffoon picks your horse, you know you're in trouble. In 100+ ESPN broadcasts in the last couple of years, has he ever picked a winner?

I wouldn't trust anything in Dubai. They issue materials that say how many days in advance it can be given but that is 23 days and the drug is known to show up in tests as many as 44 days later. What is the point in that rule? You can follow the rules and still get a positive and that is what happened. "the Emirates Association does not follow a zero tolerance policy because the Dubai Equine Hospital Medication Withdrawal document lists the medications which may be administered outside of a specified number of days of the race." What is the point?

those responsible for not taking intercontinental down in that race that she got salix too close to post time. she should have been scratched that day, but the vet lied.

all it cost anyone for that violation was a $750 fine to the vet when they discovered later by watching security camera footage that she fudged the time she gave the shot.

runner up? those responsible for dq'ing brass hat, whose connections DID follow the guidelines. i mean,they send the guide out, and then they didn't follow it themselves. it's ridiculous.

my vote goes to paragallo...and the guy who owns double galore and shipped him cross country to run last in the belmont

That guy wins a lifetime achievement award for the way that he campaigned Nationalore as well - 30 + tries and he never won a race, yet he ran in the KY Derby and a ton of other graded stakes...

The Pimlico Gate Crew.

The California Stewards.