Arrogate still the talk of the town
SARATOGA SPRINGS >> Needless to say, the racing world is still abuzz over Arrogate’s other-worldly performance Saturday in the Travers, when a horse running in his first stakes race broke a 37-year-old track record by a half-second.
Say what you want. Yes, Arrogate saved all the ground and, yes, he benefited from a lightning-fast strip that had been yielding fast times all day — two races earlier, A. P. Indian set a new stakes record in the seven-furlong Forego. And yes, it’s unusual for a horse with a 7 ½-length lead at the eighth pole to be ridden through to the finish.
The fact is, though, that Arrogate made a dozen of what were supposedly the best 3-year-olds still standing look like a bunch of allowance horses — which Arrogate himself was prior to Saturday.
And then there’s the Baffert-takes-Saratoga angle, where the California-based trainer’s three shippers ran 1-2 in the Travers (American Freedom was second) and won the King’s Bishop by 3 ½ lengths (Drefong). Prominent trainers still slip top horses into second-level tracks that offer a single race worth a lot of money — Delta Downs and Charles Town, for example — and rob the place blind.
But this crime took place at Saratoga, the oldest and most revered track in the country. The Summer Place to Be and the Graveyard of Favorites, where Man o’ War’s loss in the 1919 Sanford is treated as though it happened within recent memory.
No word yet on where Arrogate will race next, and it may be a while before we find out. When he does run again, the general feeling will probably be something like, “Okay, the Travers was great. Now let’s see him do it again.”
Monday’s stakes: The Better Talk Now
Today’s feature, the one-mile Better Talk Now Stakes on turf, honors the $4.3 earner whose best races were all between 1¼ and 1½ miles, and who in his heyday was just getting warmed up after a mile. Better Talk Now finished second in the 1 ½-mile Sword Dancer as a 10-yearold.
None of the seven entrants in this $100,000 race for 3-year-olds has gone longer than a mile and an eighth. Hammers Vision is the 2-1 morning-line favorite based on — well, it’s not clear exactly why. The Canadian-bred Court Vision ridgling exits a win in an off-the-turf race here at seven furlongs on July 31.
Our Way (7-2) also won his last start at today’s distance at the Spa on July 23. The Tizway gelding sports a 2-0-1 record from four starts at a mile.
Conquest Big E (8-1) cost Conquest Stables $700k as a Keeneland September yearling in 2014. The son of Tapit is trying grass for the first time after winning 2-of-6 on dirt. Most recently, he was a well-beaten fourth in the Holy Bull (G2) and third in the Gotham (G3). The Better Talk Now will be Conquest Big E’s first start in nearly six months.