Stocking Stuffers

By Jude T. Feld

The week before Christmas and the week after are really rather barren for Thoroughbred racing aficionados. Most major tracks are closed. The minor ones offer little to be thankful for. And even if you find a decent card somewhere, Mother Nature is likely to have a say in the outcome.

So here are a few trinkets for your Christmas stocking – just a little something to keep your holiday spirits up until Boxing Day, when racing fans open their perennial favorite Christmas present – Santa Anita.

LOOKIN AT LUCKY

Seldom does a horse with an excellent record have to keep proving himself over and over and over. Lookin At Lucky was the best two-year-old in 2009 and except for a few votes for the talented Eskendereya, he was the best three-year-old of his crop. The ultimate race of his 2010 campaign in my opinion was the Haskell (G1) at Monmouth Park. Dissed in the press, coming of a long layoff and facing a very talented field, the Bob Baffert trainee blew his competition off the Jersey shore.

UNCLE MO

Few performances have me texting friends at the eighth pole but watching the powerful son of Indian Charlie from the ESPN booth at the Spa left me breathless. I hadn’t been so impressed by a two-year-old since Big Brown broke his maiden at Saratoga years before. Uncle Mo is the real deal folks. Don’t believe people who say he can’t go a mile and a quarter – he’ll run all day. Giving him a month at the farm was “old school,” but it will pay big dividends in the spring. Here is the race that started the legend:

GOLDIKOVA

Everybody talks about her unprecedented third victory in the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1). That was a tremendous performance and an historic one as well. But if you didn’t see Goldikova’s previous outing, the Prix de la Forêt (G1), run at Longchamp near Paris, France, you missed out on what might have been the best race run by any horse, anywhere, in 2010:

BLAME & ZENYATTA

“One for the ages,” they called it – Truly a “Classic” matchup. The two best racehorses in the land, both in peak form, squaring off at a mile and a quarter at Churchill Downs. It just doesn’t get any better than that for American racing fans and the race lived up to all the hype – which makes it even more impressive. If you haven’t seen this, you must have been in a coma or found this site by accident.

SHARED ACCOUNT

This race is my present to me. My brother Bob picked this filly out for Sagamore Farm and I have followed her career, workout by workout, race by race, from day one. Shared Account is quite something – more Sally Field than Angelina Jolie, more jeans and a t-shirt than an evening gown or for those of you in Lexington, more Parkette Drive-In than Azure. This year at the Breeders’ Cup, people believed in her as much as Virginia did Saint Nick. Her price on the board rose like Neogen stock and those of us who backed her were amazed at the payoff but not by the performance. It was a very emotional race for Bob, my nephew Sean and I, as it underlined our lifetimes devoted to this sport that we love and provided that “thrill of victory” in a game laden with “the agony of defeat.”

This entry was posted on Monday, December 20th, 2010 at 8:13 am and is filed under Featured Articles. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.