Nice win by Flashy Bull
 

good for west point for sticking with him and getting whatever problems he had as a 3 y/o worked out. very nice 4 y/o season so far. powerful move to take the lead, pulls away and guts to hang on. i don't think his toughness and heart was ever a question.

disappointing run by Master Command, just along for the run today. i looked for more from Diamond Stripes also.

I was outside in the pool, trying to find the leak (once again!) Brought out a little '12 TV and ran the cable line out the upstair window to watch the races. All this between the rain drops and constant thunder! Didn't have a very good wagering day until the Foster. Flashy Bull & Magna Grad save it! Oh, by the way...found the leak & patched it. Now just waiting for the water to fill it up and see if the levels stay the same.

Thunder! Clear blue skies in Albany but I had to duck inside to catch the Foster. Very impressive 4yo campaign thus far.

It's nice to see another potential BC Classic runner emerge. Nice win.

And here's a nice story: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/...TS02/706170604

good story thanks for sharing.
Flashy Bull was my favorite horse last year. much to better 4 y/o season to follow.

i'm looking forward to seeing how his 1/2 brother Tame That Tiger (Hold That Tiger) does this year, if he runs. he's a 2 yr old with a nice Crimson Saint x3.

I already posted a longer version of this in the Foster thread, but I don't think Flashy Bull is in any way a BCC contender.
It was a nice win yesterday, and I am happy for the connections, but I don't think he is a 10f horse. I would be socked if he ever wins any 10f G1, let alone the classic.

The horse was given a 105 Beyer. It seems pretty legit to me, which shows how shallow the older horse division really is. It used to take a 105 to win a NW3X allowance. Now it is a G1 horse.

Exactly C MO,

The shape of the game right now is really rewarding those middle of the pack 3YO's that aren't worth anything at stud so they continue on into their 4 and 5 YO campaigns. I'm sure we'll read in a few days that WPT has sold an interest in FLASHY BULL to someone like WinStar and they'll retire him after the end of the year, to go on and produce nothing. Then he will get shipped to some other country for stud duties.

My guess is that it'll be INVASOR vs the 3 YO crop in this year's Classic.

Oh how the game has changed.

Once they figured that he ran better when not running on the "ambulance path," he's run quite well.

Here's a question.......where did it really start? I mean, we used to have good horses, with at least reasonable regularity. Now, it's just an absolute farce.......a masquarade ball if you will. NW3Xs going to the ball dressed as Grade 1 winners and all the misinformed go " oh my. " And some fools bite, and not only buy into these charlatans, but breed their mares to them as well. And then the breed gets just a little worse.....and it goes on and on.

So who were the real initial frauds that started to substantially permeate the breed to really get the ball of mediocrity rolling? Who were these subpar 2YOs or 3YOs that were given absurd stud deals and force fed down the throats of the nouveau riche who wanted to get inside this game and were subsequently fleeced out of their dollars while buying two headed yearlings because they thought it would give them a better chance to win a photo?

I want the names......and I want them now!

That performance didn't crack the TOP 30 in the Beyer department this year. Unreal how bad that race was.

The top Beyer past a mile so far? 115 Fairbanks. LOL

I don't think it was a bunch of frauds or semi-lousy 2 & 3 year olds. I do think the deal made for Secretariat shortly after the Belmont started the movement toward retiring very good horses early for big money.

Maybe if O Phipps had lost the coin flip he would have gotten Secretariat and things would have been different.

Sec was sold BEFORE the TC not after. The boom in stud values traces to the early 80's and the opening up of the international market. No one horse or human is responsible but lets face it, since 2000, how many of the "best" 3yo colts have run on at four, at all? Tiznow did, but honestly with his breeding, no one was screaming for him, even after his BC win. Similarly Albert the Great. Of the "classic" colts most retired w/out even finishing their 3yo campaigns. I am not implying that colts like Point Given, FuPeg or Afleet Alex and Smarty Jones were "horses for the ages" but they were leaders in their class who could have provided top quality racing in the 4up division. PG, Alex and Smarty all retired with "injuries" that did NOT preclude racing again.
At some point in the 80's established, successful racehorses with desireable breeding became to valuable to race.

We can only hope that the best colts of the next few years will actually be geldings, or at best modestly bred entire males. It's the best shot we'll have at high class racing for older horses.

Yes, the Secretariat deal, which was reached before he started racing as a 3yo, was understood as a special situation, where the money was necessary to save the farm, quite literally. But when the syndicate that was put together for Conquistador Cielo, who was not particularly well-bred, for $40million, the floodgates opened.

Many of the financial difficulties of Calumet stemmed from the insane amounts that Lundy 'paid' for lesser lights like Secreto and Mogambo. Risen Star sufferred a minor injury and was retired after the Belmont to cash in. Spend a Buck didn't run at 4, either, although he did run until August.

THe 1980s bloodstock bubble was the beginning of the time when breeding for the sales became more important than breeding for racing. The original Breeders' Cup concept was a response to this trend - to create a race with a big enough purse to tempt owners into keeping their hot 3yo in training until the fall at least, and into their 4yo season at best. It hasn't worked.

I agree and I think two things happened....and one of them was the birth of Storm Cat.

Before Storm Cat was Mr P (who was the sire of Conquistador Cielo) and the big daddy of "priceless" stallions, Northern Dancer. The shift to a commercial approach to breeding took place in the 80's and has continued. When horses like Secretariat were syndicated it was understood that the shareholders were going to raise and race the bulk of their baby "Big Reds." In fact some commercial breeders were NOT permitted to buy shares because of fears about such enerprises hurting Sec's value if there was a perception that folks were "selling off" the Secretariat babies.

put those three names together and you get yourself a hat-trick of a disaster for the racing end of the business.