A look back: Make Music For Me

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?