12 way shake for Made For Magic ($62,500)
 

After running 6th beaten 8.25 lengths to Zenyatta and running a phony 79 Beyer two weeks ago ... Made For Magic was in for a 62.5K tag yesterday in an opt claimer at Del Mar.

She ran 5th beaten 9.25 lengths as the laughable 6/5 favorite this time. Her Beyer will surely come back in the mid to high 60's .. about where it should have been for her last race.

They had 12 claims in for her.

She's been the second horse to run back from the "Grade 1" Clement Hirsch - Spring Style (4th in the Hirsch) was dead last in a field of 7 behind Wasted Tears last weekend.

It will be interesting to see if Rinterval tries Zenyatta again in the Zenyatta Stakes .. or if she ships back to Presque Isle for the Masters Stakes - on a track where she was smoked by a subsequent 5K claimer last summer.

Wasted Tears has real guts. Maybe she can transfer to synth and Cali can get a gal to run fast races.

You sir, are an idiot.

Everyone knows that the big mare from California only runs as fast as she needs to to win.

And she proved that against cross country shipper Gio Ponti - who typically only runs as fast as he needs to run 2nd.

I know sir, I know.

Khrist what a workout last night

Maybe we'll invite Sightseek to join us for the next one


Anyway, just watched the Hirsch again … and Z's performance was no less impressive than when I saw the race live

Easily getting to a sharp front-running filly after being fanned quite wide coming off that turn

Those sharp long sprinter types can be VERY dangerous when they are spotted back in short routes like that

And this one got away with a pedestrian first half, no less, and still couldn't repel the big mare in the lane


Couldn't be happier with the way Z is coming into the fall season...

I'm currently on a full body lifting routine made up of primarily compound exercises every other day - I think you'd bounce off that short of a turn around Cali boy.

Gosh, Doug, you seem to forget that Zenyatta brings out the best in her rivals. Remember when we were led to believe that Floating Heart ran a career best race when 3rd in the Santa Margarita? Yeah, that's the filly who finished 4th in a N3X yesterday at Saratoga and got an 80 Beyer.

NT

If you guys don't think that plenty of horses run to their competition, then you guys are hopeless.

Plenty of horses run to their competition in the morning and the afternoon. I have been involved with plenty of horses that wouldn't show anything in the morning if you didn't work them in company. And if you did work them in company, you had to work them with a good horse because they'd get nothing out of their work if you worked them with a bad horse. If you worked them with a bad horse, they'd do all they needed to do to barely outwork the bad horse and they'd end up working 1:02. If you worked them with a good horse, they'd work 1:00.

This isn't groundbreaking information. It's common knowledge amongst anyone that has even a minimal understanding of racehorses.

She does.

I get that the way her silly exhibition races are run bring out the worst in her - and don't do justice to how much better she is than the laughable collection of tomato cans she's been edging out .. I don't get the figure makers need to inflate her figure though .. as it, in turn, unnecessarily rewards the well beaten ones.

If you can't understand that she isn't winning by more than the margins she is because of pace and trip issues .. you're hopeless and borderline retarded.

If you ran the Clement Hirsch - and removed Zenyatta from the race - the pace would have been a hell of a lot more contested as the riders wouldn't have all been trying to turn the race into a perverted 2.5 furlong sprint that was a disgraceful eyesore to watch.

Yes, in a truly run race, Zenyatta would have won the Hirsch by a significant margin (no less than 3 lengths - possibly as many as 6 or 7 if Dance to My Tune and Rinterval really knocked heads and softened each other up)

Normally - I would call anyone who tries to make a case of running to competition by comparing morning workouts with Grade 1 stakes races a complete imbecile ... but yeah, that's pretty much what all of her stakes wins this year save the Vanity have been .. glorified paid morning workouts.

Like flushing 62k down the toilet.

That is exactly the point. That is why it's silly for people to measure how good she is based on her final times and winning margins.

Let me know when she doesn't face cheap claimers or wildly overrated turf horses that are running on synthetics.

How overrated could Gio Ponti be? He's won five Grade I stakes races. Any horse that's won 5 grade I races has got to be a pretty good horse.

And we've seen time and time again that most of these turf horses can run well on synthetic tracks, so I don't think you can say that Gio Ponti isn't good on synthetic tracks.

The horse's she beat in the classic were just awful, only 2 that have come back to race in 2010 have yet to win a grade 1. Twice Over, Awesome Gem, Rip Van Winkle, Gio Ponti have all come back to win grade 1's this year. Which translates into a fat 67% of the horses she has run against in the Classic that are still running today have won grade 1 wins thus far. Yep it's brutal.

Great, 3 turf horses and the ancient grinder Awesome Gem.

It was nice to see Gio Ponti finally win a stretch duel for a change in his Grade 1 ... even though the 2nd place finisher was defeated in a race he was claimed for 35K out of last time out.



Yeah, claim a New York bred for 35K, watch it get beat, enter in a Grade 1 stakes next out and almost win. Good plan. Props to trainer Naipual Chatterpaul for having the brains to realize the turf horses here suck balls.

Rip Van Winkle was on the fence to even run in the Classic because of a foot issue. He did run - and ran like an utter cripple .. he beat almost no one and even Mine That Bird finished a huge margin in front of him ... the same MTB that ran dead last over the same track in the BC Juvie the prior year and was later soundly crushed by Gitano Hernando .. some phony from Europe with a Latino Prison sounding name who made a mockery of the Goodwood Stakes field.

Awesome Gem came East and ran on dirt - he got smoked at Charles Town and smoked at Lone Star

Holy cow you are dumb.

Imagine that, Rip, Gio Ponti and Twice Over won GIs on their preferred surface this year! Since when has 4 of 7 equaled 67%?

NT

That's not important unless every horse in the field comes back to win a Grade I and even that's not imprtant unless each Grade I is a tough Grade I. I can't belive you didn't know that. And Gio Ponti's Grade I does not mean anything since he beat a claimer. Never mind Gio Ponti's other four Grade I wins last year. He's obviously not a very goood horse despite the fact that he's won five Grade 1's.