One of the things I like about covering the two-year-old sales is the ability to look back at the training preview for lessons in hindsight.
Four of this year's Belmont Stakes (G1) entrants sold at the two-year-old sales last year -- Dave in Dixie ($310,000 Keeneland April), Make Music For Me ($95,000 Barretts March), Stately Victor ($250,000 Adena Springs), and Uptowncharlybrown ($57,000 OBS April).
I've chosen Make Music For Me as the subject of this entry because he sold affordably, and he is the type of horse I have learned to appreciate at the juvenile sales -- a relatively fast worker with an efficient, rhythmic stride that is moving within himself while reaching out for ground. I want to see future potential in the work, preferably of the two-turn variety. I have learned to get away from horses who look like they are all out to run the fastest 1-2 furlongs of their life.
Eddie Woods, one of the top pinhookers in the game (champion Big Brown is his most famous recent graduate), consigned Make Music For Me at the Barretts March sale. The Bernstein colt's time for one furlong over Fairplex Park's dirt surface was :10.40. That placed him in the upper 50% of the times at the distance, but still three lengths slower than the fastest worker.
Make Music For Me has won only once, but he has finished in the top four in five graded stakes and earned $362,260 for owners Peter and Ellen Johnson. Most recently he finished fourth in the Kentucky Derby (G1) after rallying wide from way way back.
Make Music For Me is out of the Carson City mare Miss Cheers. Although his pedigree is not a great fit for the Belmont distance of 1 1/2 miles, he always seems to be passing horses in the lane.
Here is how Make Music For Me looked as an unraced two-year-old last March. Would you have seen his potential?
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6 comments:
He seemed pretty powerful in the work... the jock kept a pretty tight rein on him and it looked like it may have inhibited his reach a tad and he threw his head a few times. He looked huge in the video!
He certainly looked good in the video. However, I wouldn't think many Belmont winners would come out of a two-year-old in training sale. That being said, Eddie Woods does not seem to drill his juveniles to do more than they are willing to do within themselves... Eddie doesn't seem to squeeze the lemon dry and his horses seem to have something left for the races and not just the sales. Something interesting to note about Make Music For Me... he is the only horse in the Belmont that was sold as two-year-old in training and was not offered at any prior public auction. It seems that the vast majority of horses entered in two-year-olds in training sales were offered for sale as a yearling the prior year. Do you know why Make Music For Me was not offered for sale as a yearling? Maybe he needed some time to grow out of some conformational issues? Maybe the breeder decided to get out? I guess there could be countless reasons, but do you see many horses that are sold as two-year-olds that were never offered at public auction as a yearling or weanling?
Bill, you are correct in your comments about Eddie Woods. He is not known for working his horses overly fast.
Eddie sold Make Music For Me on behalf of the breeder Dick Schultz. Mr. Schultz also consigns his own horses under the True South banner. Mr. Schultz dabbles in most all sectors of the auction market. That's a good flexibility to have, because it allows him to sell a horse at the right time.
I asked Eddie today what he remembered about Make Music For Me, and here's what he said:
"Are you wondering why he didn't bring more? I thought he should have brought more. He is a spectacular mover, always was. I think he was too big and long striding for those turns at Fairplex. He blew both turns, and every tick can mean a fortune in our business."
It turns out that '09 Barretts was one of the few national auctions EQB Inc. has missed in the past several years.
Unfortunately it is impossible to do a decent analysis job from ordinary video, even if we slow it down. They take too few pictures per second, so crucial elements of the stride are lost or fuzzed.
Anyway, for your hip 22 from Barretts '09 I could see that this horse seemed generally to have a nice, powerful, long stride, with no obvious problems, but that was it from the You Tube based data available.
This is the kind of workout that I think gets overlooked. It is not the prettiest stride (as far as a daisy cuter stride which most buyers are drawn to) but he definitely covers the ground and he carries his head well (which I think is important) and the time was good.
It looks like he didn't gallop out well which is another overrated item at the sales I think unless you consider how they handle the turns and how much the rider is asking them to gallop out.
Overall, my opinion after watching all these workouts over the years is that unless they look HORRIBLE and or work SUPER slow...it doesn't mean a whole lot to the end product. Heart and desire will always mean more.
Correction on the spelling of the breeder's name - it should be spelled Richard Shultz (not Schultz). Blogger does not let me edit comments, so I can't fix it.
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