Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

First let me again say thank you for coming through so well last year. Havre de Grace and Blind Luck continued their rivalry, the new Santa Anita surface seems to be working, New York has their racinos up and running and Hollywood Park is still open.

This year, I’m toning it down a little bit. Asking for less and hoping that less strain helps you again deliver the items on my wish list and I see them under the tree on Christmas morning – and throughout the entire new year.

I know you’re busy St. Nick, so without further ado:

1 - You keep delivering – and I’ll keep asking. Santa, do what you can to keep Hollywood Park open for another year.

2 - Good TV Ratings for all horse racing telecasts this year. While television ratings for the Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands remains solid and competitive with major sports such as NBA basketball and major league baseball, it attracts far more viewers than other horse racing telecasts, network or cable. Even the Breeders' Cup can't compete with Kentucky Derby ratings.

So let's ride the coat tails of the Kentucky Derby itself.

This year NBC will provide live coverage of six major Derby prep races over four weeks leading up to the Run for the Roses on the first Saturday in May. Good ratings will not only help - and further validate horse racing as a big time sport. A solid amount of viewers watching the Arkansas Derby, for instance, should translate to even better Kentucky Derby television ratings. Wouldn't that be nice?

The series will be highlighted by an NBC telecast of the Santa Anita Derby and the Wood Memorial April 7. The 90-minute live telecast will originate from Aqueduct Race Track in New York and Santa Anita near Los Angeles and is the third telecast of the series following the Spiral Stakes from Turfway Park in Kentucky Mar. 24 and the Florida Derby from Gulfstream Park Mar. 31. The Spiral Stakes and Florida Derby will be on NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus) while the Blue Grass Stakes and Arkansas Derby will be on CNBC on April 14.



3 - I’m not going to ask for a Triple Crown winner again. Since Affirmed won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes back in 1978, American racing has gone without a Triple Crown winner the past 33 years. Each year I ask for a Triple Crown winner and each year, I am rejected. Since Big Brown won the Derby and Preakness in 2008, we haven’t even had hope for a Triple Crown winner going into the Belmont.

So maybe Triple Crown winner is too much to put on a Christmas list. All I ask: Don’t take away our hope even before the Derby because of something silly like an equine liver disease. Not silly as in not sereious. Silly as in "What the dog gone it was that all about?" (See Union Rags)

4 - How about if Tim Tebow were to buy a race horse. We’ll take his winning magic as part of the package but you can keep his passing game. Give that to some Pop Warner team.

5 - Bring Frankel the horse to the United States. Although he is the 2011 European Horse of the Year and Champion 3-year-old, he is named after one of the great American horsemen of our time. Frankel the horse is named for the late Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel. A five-time Eclipse Award winner as champion trainer, Bobby Frankel trained many great horses for Frankel’s owner Juddmonte Farm.

6 - I still haven’t seen trainer Dale Romans and Huckleberry Hound in the same place. Coincidence?

7 - I’ve know you to sneak down to races a time or two each year Santa. I’ve see you and Prancer at Silks lounge at Arlington Park betting Saratoga and Del Mar. But let’s face it – neither of you have time to get to the track in the winter. In fact, I’d like to wish for a winter break on all-tracks after the Breeders’ Cup. Tha’t right Santa – no racing from early November through January. I’ve thought this through Santa and know that it will leave money on the table and create holiday hardships for many people who sell mutual tickets, clean stalls or sell hot dogs and maybe we should wait for the economy to get rolling again before we jump into this. But every sport needs some resemblance of a season.

Most major sports in America need some form of contraction to increase interest and eventually profits in the long run. We know pro football doesn’t work in Los Angeles and baseball is a flop in Tampa Bay. Why there is hockey in Dallas and Phoenix is beyond me. The two lowest attended teams in the NHL, neither Dallas or Phoenix average less than 11,500. That is 2,000 less fans per night than the Columbus Blue Jackets. (I played hockey and had to look up the mascot for Columbus.)

Horse racing also needs to get smaller. And I’d start with no winter racing. Sorry Hollywood Park, Santa Anita, Aqueduct, Gulfstream, Churchill Downs, Fair Grounds et. al. Your over supplying the market.

8 - And finally Santa, keep all of the jockeys, exercise riders, trainers, stable hands and of course the horses, safe throughout the year.

Sincerely,

Brock Sheridan

Hollywood Park Attracts Breeders' Cup Stars

Hollywood Park, draped in a cloud of uncertainty about their future and opening the Fall meeting on of all days Friday the 13th, has been blessed with plenty of good news this week from Breeders' Cup horsemen.

Trainer Bobby Frankel assistant Humberto Ascanio has indicated that Ventura, second in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (gr. 1) at Santa Anita, is expected to return in Hollywood Park's $300,000 Matriarch (gr. IT) on Nov. 28. Frankel, who ha been absent from the barn for sometime battling cancer, has won the one-mile turf race a record eight times.

Ventura, who is expected to retire to the breeding farm for the 2010 breeding season, won the 2008 Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint and has won two of five starts including the grade 1 Woodbine Mile in Canada this year.



The 2-year-old racing for the 27-day Autumn meeting at Hollywood Park also got a boost from Kentucky-based trainer Kenneth McPeek when he announced that his powerful group of Breeders' Cup freshmen would stay in Southern California.

The two biggest young stars, Noble's Promise and Beautician are scheduled to run in the track's premier 2-year-old races on the weekend of Dec. 19-20. Noble's Promise, third in the Grey Goose Breeders' Cup Juvenile (gr. 1), is being pointed for the $750,000 Cash Call Futurity (gr. 1) while Grey Goose Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. 1) runner-up Beautician is scheduled to run the next day in the $300,000 Hollywood Starlet (gr. 1).

McPeek has also said that Bridgetown (2nd in Juvenile Turf), House of Grace (3rd in Juvenile Fillies Turf) and Juvenile Fillies eighth-place finisher Connie and Michael will remain in Southern California.

Ladies Still Classic With Jewels, Music And The Beach

Now that it's official that super mare Zenyatta is running in the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic on Saturday, one might think the Ladies Classic will be compromised in popularity. Certainly fewer fans will tune in to watch the Friday card on ESPN now that Zenyatta has decided to take on her male counterparts, but I still have the Ladies Classic ranked among my most anticipated of the weekend.

Morning line favorite Music Note (photo) has won seven of her 11 career starts and hasn't started outside a grade 1 race since the weekend Big Brown won the Preakness last May. She's the best of the New York mares having demolished her competition in the grade 1 Ballerina and grade 1 Beldame in her last two starts and may have given Zenyatta a run for her money if she had entered the Ladies Classic. She is trained by Saeed bin Suroor for the powerful Goldolfin Stables, who will also start Cocoa Beach in the Ladies Classic.

There are storylines galore in Ladies Classic with close second choice Careless Jewel going for her sixth straight win and the John Sherriffs-trained Life is Sweet trying to take advantage of her neighbor (Zenyatta) staying in the barn on race day for a change.

Fans of the very popular Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel have plenty reasons to not miss the Ladies Classic as well. Frankel has been absent from his barn for months battling health challenges that hasn't stopped him sending his usual arsenal to the Breeders' Cup.

Proviso will be saddled by Frankel assistants Humberto Ascanio and Sally Lundy in the Ladies Classic and comes into this race off of a victory in the grade 1 Spinster Stakes at Keeneland. She was disqualified from her Spinster win and placed second for inteference in the stretch but was still impressive considering it was her first start in the United States and she acheived a 99 Beyer speed figure in the performance.

After finishing as the runner-up to Zenyatta in this race last year, Cocoa Beach has never quite returned to her top form and has been relegated to second string status in the bin Suroor barn behind Music Note. She was a good third behind Zenyatta and Lethal Heat in the Lady's Secret at Santa Anita in her last start, but her morning work this week made one think she might be on the verge of a big race. The time was a good :59.40 for five furlongs, but she looked effortless in skipping over Pro-Ride in the pre-dawn work while her exercise ride sat motionless aboard. At 8-1 in the morning line, she's worth some consideration.

So if you've decided that you're going to work Friday now that Zenyatta is racing Saturday, you may want to consider rehearsing your flu voice. You know... when you call in sick.

Sentimental Favorites

With no regard to wagering or handicapping, there are a few horses headed for the Breeders' Cup that I'm going to be pulling for. My money will probably be elsewhere, but for one reason or another, these horses have captured my affection at some point this year.

Mine That Bird, Classic: It's not that I have any affinity toward his connections although I have warmed up to trainer Chip Woolley Jr. as a trainer. I'd like to see the guy off of those darn crutches pretty soon though. I don't think repeating Unbridled's Derby/Classic will be anything historical although it would open the discussion for Champion Three-Year-Old Male which would be kind of fun.

But what I'd like to see from the little gelding is that amazing kick we saw in the Derby and got a glimse of in the Preakness. After his performance in the grade 1 Goodwood at the Oak Tree meeting recently, however, that doesn't look likely.

Presious Passion, Turf: Finding horses that can go wire-to-wire on the turf successfully and consistently at any level is a rarity. To find a horse that can do it while racing in grade 1 company is just downright a blast.

We all remember that one-mile run in high school P.E. class and the goofy kid that just started sprinting at the beginning of the race only to tire and lucky to finish. Well that's Presious Passion. Except he keeps on going just as he did in the grade 1 United Nations at Monmouth Park and recently in the $300,000 Clement L. Hirsch Memorial Turf Championship (gr. IIT) at Santa Anita Oct. 11.

The Breeders' Cup Turf at Santa Anita starts on a downhill run too, so that should be a benefit to a natural speedster like Presious Passion. I'd say exclude the "goofy" label but I'm not the one who filled out his foal papers.

Dublin, Juvenile: After winning the grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga with Dublin, it looked like trainer D. Wayne Lukas may have plenty of amunition for a run at his sixth Breeders' Cup Juvenile in Dublin. But he ran a dull fifth, beating one horse in the Champagne (gr. 1) at Belmont and now he's a longshot.

Lukas has won 20% of all Breeders' Cup Juveniles run and took three consecutive from 1986-'88 with Capote, Success Express and Is It True. He also won with Timber County in 1984 and Boston Harbor two years later. It would be nice to see him take another.

Ventura, Filly and Mare Sprint; Proviso, Ladies Classic; Visit, Filly and Mare Turf: All horses trained by Bobby Frankel who is battling cancer at his home near Santa Anita. It took 40 starts in the Breeders' Cup before he got his first win with Squirtle Squirt in the 2001 Sprint and he only has five total victories from 72 starts so he hasn't had a great deal of luck in the Breeders' Cup. Ventura presents his best chance this year but here's hoping the Hall of Fame trainer goes three-for-three this year.

History Continues In Hollywood Gold Cup

While this, perhaps the final edition of the TVG/Betfair $700,000 Hollywood Gold Cup may not feature any iconic runners, it is packed with plenty of story lines of interest and a full and evenly matched field of 13. The two favorites alone provide plenty of fan fodder with the 6-year-old gelding Parading shipping in from New York and the 4-year-old filly Life is Sweet moving out of the distaff division to take on the older boys.

Life is Sweet, who is trained by John Sherriffs and is a stablemate of the undefeated Zenyatta, is trying to become only the fourth female to win the Gold Cup which will be run for the 70th time Saturday. Princessnesian became the third female to win the Gold Cup in 1968, joining Happy Issue (1944) and Two Lea (1952). Not many have tried in the last three decades. Life Is Sweet, who will be ridden by two-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey Garrett Gomez, will be the first to start in the Gold Cup since Kilijaro finished seventh in 1981.

But the sentimental favorite may be Mast Track trained by Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, who has been recovering from an undisclosed illness at his home near Los Angeles and is one of the more popular trainers in horse racing. Mast Track is also the defending champion in the Hollywood Gold Cup having won the race last year for Frankel. Frankel will be going for his third Gold Cup havig first won with Marquetry in 1991 and Aptitude in 2001.

Trainer Doug O'Neill will be trying to win his fifth Gold Cup since 2002 when he won with Sky Jack. He then took three consecutive Gold Cup from 2005-07 with Lava Man and has Informed for this year's edition. Informed. who was racing at the $25,000 claiming level a year ago, won the grade 2 Californian at 14-1 at Hollywood Park June 14 over Rail Trip, who also comes back in the Gold Cup.

O'Neill is still far from trainer Charlie Whittingham's record of eight wins in the prestigious 1-1/4 mile event. His list of Gold Cup victors reads like a Thoroughbred racing history book after winning with Ack Ack (1971), Quack ('72), Kennedy Road ('73), Tree of Knowledge ('74), Exceller ('78), Perrault ('82), Grienton ('85) and Ferdinand in 1987.

Seabiscuit and jockey George Woolf won the first Hollywood Gold Cup in 1938. Since then winner have included Citation in 1951, Swaps ('56), Round Table ('57), Gallant Man ('58), Native Diver won three times from 1965-'67, Affirmed ('79), Best Pal ('93) and Cigar in 1995.

Jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. has won the race nine times and Bill Shoemaker eight times.

Trainer Frankel Recovering At Home

From the Bobby Frankel Get Well group on Facebook:
Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel is recovering from an undisclosed illness at his Los Angeles area home, according to several people close to him, and has stayed away from the racetrack in recent weeks, leading to widespread concern among his friends and colleagues in the sport about his long-term health. We would like to let Bobby know we are thinking about him and wish him well during this difficult time.

One of the most successful trainers in American racing, Frankel has had a major presence throughout the nation in the last two decades. He has won 26 races worth $1 million or more, including six Breeders' Cup races and the 2003 Belmont Stakes with Empire Maker.

Frankel has trained 10 national champions, including 2004 Horse of the Year Ghostzapper, and has won 30 training titles in Southern California and New York. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995, Frankel has won five Eclipse Awards as the nation's outstanding trainer, most recently in 2003.

But it is Frankel the person, as much as the trainer, that has made him a popular figure in racing. A native of Brooklyn, Frankel is known for a quick wit, a fiery temper, and a sense of humor. But he is a man with a well-known soft spot for his horses, particularly fillies, as well as his pet dogs.

- Steve Andersen, DRF

The Brock Talk Note: Santa Anita has created a Bobby Frankel Get Well Soon card on Facebook that allows fans and friends to post messages. There is a link directly to the page on the right hand side of this page.