Alwasy Dreaming, Cloud Computing ready for Jim Dandy

With the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winners scheduled to start, Saturday’s Jim Dandy Stakes looks like a fabulous affair.

Derby winner Always Dreaming and Preakness winner Cloud Computing, trained respectively by Todd Pletcher and Chad Brown, are on target for Saratoga’s main prep for the Travers Stakes.

At the conclusion of the Triple Crown season in June, Pletcher and Brown both mentioned the Jim Dandy as the likely next start for their classic winners.

Plans for thoroughbreds are always dicey, but it looks like their forecast is going to hold, promising an exciting renewal of the Jim Dandy.

The Jim Dandy, at 1 1/8 miles, has served its purpose and then some.

It is a furlong shorter than the Travers, and it offers a race over the Saratoga track.

With the 3-year-old male division in flux, the Jim Dandy and Travers could turn out to be key steps on the road to an Eclipse Award.

Three times in succession, in 2005, 2006, and 2007, the Jim Dandy winner captured the Travers.

They were Flower Alley, Bernardini, and Street Sense.

Jim Dandy winners Stay Thirsty and Alpha, in 2011 and 2012, respectively, also won the Travers. And Travers winners Afleet Express and Will Take Charge, in 2010 and 2013, respectively, placed in the Jim Dandy.

The most exciting Jim Dandy I saw was in 1978, won by Affirmed.

He had not raced since completing his marvelous Triple Crown over arch-rival Alydar.

They staged a gutwrenching battle in the Belmont Stakes two months earlier, racing side by side for the final mile of the “Test of the Champion.”

Making his first start since the Belmont, Affirmed was nearly 10 lengths behind the outstanding runner Sensitive Prince in the early stages of the Jim Dandy.

Sensitive Prince had earlier won the Hutcheson and Fountain of Youth Stakes and was a top member of the crop.

Lone speed in a small field is dangerous, and he looked on his way to a major upset.

At the top of the stretch Affirmed was still four lengths behind, and I’m sure many of those in attendance wondered if the Triple Crown had taken its toll.

Affirmed unleashed an amazing kick in the final furlong to win by a half-length over Sensitive Prince, while conceding that rival nine pounds.

It was so impressive that the chart caller for Daily Racing Form called it “going away.”

ALLAN CARTER ON NEW YORK BREEDING: You wonder why a book like this has not been done before.

Allan Carter, the historian at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, has just released one on the history of thoroughbred breeding in New York.

Key to its importance is that it covers nearly a century and a half of state breeding before the legislative creation of the New York State Thoroughbred Breeding and Development Fund in 1973.

“From American Eclipse to Silent Screen: An Early History of New York-breds” is an exhaustive study by Carter, who is an outstanding researcher of racing.

Devotees of New York breeding in our time link the creation of the Fund to modern success.

The Fund offers monetary incentives to state breeders in return for their investment in green space and bloodstock.

During its existence, we’ve seen outstanding New York-breds like champion Funny Cide, plus Commentator, J’ray, Dayatthespa, Bustin Stones, Fio Rito, La Verdad, and Upstart to name just a few.

Carter takes the reader through decades of accomplishment before the Fund, with breeders such as the Lorillards, Francis Morris, the Belmonts, the Sanford family, and Willis Sharpe Kilmer.

Morris’s Ruthless won the first Belmont Stakes and fourth Travers Stakes in 1867.

The Sanfords won most of the important events at Saratoga with runners like Mohawk II, Molly Brant, Kenyetto, and Chuctununda in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Carter concludes with Silent Screen, the American champion 2-year-old male in 1969.

If you love New York racing, you need this book.

I’ve known Allan for a long time and know what he can do.

And he did it.