Mark Cramer
C & X Report

BC05
Post 1
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
I’ll be the guinea pig here, opening with my first impressions. More often than I’d wish, my first impression has been good and then I’ve gone deeper and gotten lost with other horses. So you can do a laboratory test of my process right here.
BC TURF
As you recall from the Arc posts, I felt BAGO was live but that it looked much like a prep for the BC Turf. He was an impressive third in the Arc and has never been off the board in 14 starts. Bago was not his best self in his efforts prior to the Arc. Look for a peak.
If Bago was “prepping” in the Arc, then you’d have to say the same, and even more so, for SHIROCCO, now in the Fabre barn. The Arc was his second race following a 10 month layoff. Prior to the Arc, his handlers declared that they were hoping for a soft track. They got a good labeled “good” instead. It’s been raining in NY.
Between the top two, Shirocco’s stable has earned much more BC credits.
ALKAASED, from the Cumani barn, is another longshot that would not look surprising in the winners’ circle. This is your horse-for-distance.
AZAMOUR and SHAKESPEARE are the likely favorites. They can be considered equal to the above three, but not superior enough to take the lower odds. Shakespeare has home field advantage.
BC CLASSIC
C&X readers know that I’m a fan of ROCK HARD TEN. Just analyze him since he got into the Mandella barn. The question mark could be the track condition, and maybe the fact that he had to delay his ship to NY because of a condition problem.
One logic is that so many of the best horses have defected from this race or been retired that the Euro horses should have a better chance. I vote against Oratorio, however. He caught a declining Motivator twice, but he’s no Giant’s Causeway, and he’s all turf breeding. The horses he beat did not come back to win. If STARCRAFT goes here, we’d have to look more deeply into his chances.
WEIRD PATTERN MATCH
In the F&M, INTERCONTINENTAL has never won beyond 1 1/16 and is most distinguished as a miler. She stretches out to 1 ¼ for the first time in her career. The match is that she’s the full sister of Banks Hill, picked by yours truly in the 2001 F&M, and Banks Hill was also stretching out from a mile and dealing with this distance for the first time in her career?
QUESTION FOR THE VETS WHO ARE SUBSCRIBERS TO C&X
We’ve discussed this before. A horse wakes up after a displaced palate operation. LIFESTYLE is still eligible for NW2. As a four year old maiden, he won by nearly 10 as a first-time starter, and then came back, at Belmont, to win by 13 ½ in May of 2004. Since then, he’s lost five straight, four of them as beaten favorite. Then the operation. Since the operation, he worked in 57.2 and galloped out in 110.8. Trainer Wesley Ward is 3 for 10 in graded stakes. So, what do the vets think?
Just for fun, let’s compare LIFESTYLE’S 7f Belmont race as a second time starter with LOST IN THE FOG’s 7f Belmont.
9May04 Lifestyle: 45 108.4 121.3 DRF variant/11 Beyer/105 (Lifestyle’s second start)
11Jun05 Lost in the Fog 44.2 108.3 121.2 DRF variant/13 Beyer107
PS. The Cramers are in the process of moving. We did not plan it to coincide with the BC, though the BC is a good excuse for having my wife move the furniture. C&X will be delayed til after the BC, not because of the moving but because the Breeders’ Cup usually provides us with wise lessons. Hope they are not painful lessons.mc
Next post Wednesday.