Performance of the day- one to watch in stakes
 

Belmont, race 5- Go Smarty Go.

Was 20-1 ML for his debut, bet down like he was a good thing (for a guy who is notoriously bad with firsters), and ran even bettter than that. Covered up early, then swung out for running room and responded to win for fun in a ridiculous 1:20 3/5. He's a half to Higher World, who won a G2 at Woodbine at 2 and I think tried the BC Juvy Fillies after that, so there's some dirt precedence in there as well.

Vanned off according to the chart. . .

He did not pull up well.

My understanding is he's OK.

One shot wonder..Hope the horse is o.k. :(

I didn't know that, hopefully he's OK. Looked straight and strong under the wire so it must have been around the turn pulling up.

he was 10-1 morning line, but did look very very good today.........
11 11 Go Smarty Go Castellano J J Alexander Frank A 118 FTL 10-1

Higher World, by Peaks and Valleys out of Sarah's World, a winning Holy Bull half-sister to G2 winner Coaxing Matt, both out of Native Scent, by Native Charger. Good Florida stuff there. Native Scent was a winner herself and a full-sister to G3 winner, G1-placed, P. R. Man, both out of Cologne, a solid dirt and turf stakes mare in the days before grading (won the Distaff and Suwanee River), she by Amerigo from an imported Sicambre half-sister to French star Balto - he won the Grand Prix de Paris and the Ascot Gold Cup, both group 1 when Pattern racing was introduced.

Peaks and Valleys has no Transworld in him, either, but he also goes back to an Amerigo mare, his third dam Take a Stand. Since Amerigo had a relatively short stud career - 5 crops, 125 foals (25 per crop was normal back then) - this is an unusual occurence.

Speaking of Woodbine, Not Bourbon was very impressive this Saturday in his first race back after having a blocked throat in the Wales race Harlem Rocker won in the Can triple crown series of races. I would say he will be one to watch when they decide to ship him to an American track. One to tab for later, this horse can be a serious polytrack sprinter.

He certainly accelerated in the race. That race was the fastest by far of the 5 7F races that day at WO; however, the qtr of that race was significantly slower than that of the others.

I was very impressed with him, it was a small field but the time was very fast and he did it basically on his own courage. I'm not saying he is a grade 1 winner by any means yet, however on polytracks he seems to have an affinity for that surface. He could be very dangerous in atleast Gr.2 sprinting company, to me this is a very good horse with the potential to go onto better things.

Go Smarty Go?
 

Bloodhorse.com first brought Go Smarty Go's situation to my attention when they said he became another winner for Smarty Jones but then was vanned off after breaking his maiden. Nobody seems to know what's going on. Whoever does the blogging for BH has jury duty so they won't be dealing with this for a couple days. Does anybody here know what's up?

Only thing I heard......
 

Was Steve say on ATR, that all signs were positive. Hope that means good news.

Smarty Jones sadly should be vanned off as a stallion.. perhaps my worst call since voting for George Bush

It's still early Freddy.

Huh?
He's had 9 starters, and 4 of them have won the first time out, an absurd percentage! None have tried stakes yet but what else do you want?

He was my all time favorite horse, but I thought he would be a terrible stallion. I'M (happily) being proven wrong.

Are you sure about that, not to long ago, like before Lukas/Luzzi popped with that big price Smarty, i remember ppl saying Smarty does not have a winner in NY yet.

His offspring just aren't selling for top dollar is the thing. His stud fee is likely to decline considerably unless that changes. Based on everything so far, there is a pretty good chance he ends up up a tremendous flop.
I'm with DrugS on this one though, I think you have to give it a bit more time. For one thing, look at Smarty's pedigree. Smarty is by Elusive Quality who did his best running at age 5. He is out of a Smile mare, and Smile did his best running at age 4. Elusive Quality's top offspring (other than Smarty obviously) is probably Maryfield, and she was at her best at age 6. The point is, it seems like Smarty comes from something of a late developing family. It seems at least possible, therefore, that while he might not sire the flashiest yearlings or the stoutest 2yos, he might end up being a decent sire of 3yo+ racehorses. It is hard to judge these things when his progeny have been only racing for a couple of months and they are all 2yos.
His sales #s aren't great, and his at the track numbers are too few to be meaningful. It is just a lot of pretty meaningless guesswork at this point.

He lost by a nose to honour and glory in the kings bishop after running 6f in 108 and 4/5 and i think there was an allowance race ( loss at belmont) where he set the fractions and got caught at the wire.

Yeah...he was fast. That loss in the KB had to be heartbreaking because he was clear with like 100 yards to go before H and G caught him at the wire.