The Mother Goose

The not fully Assembled—are we then the Disassembled?—met at Belmont on Saturday. A quorum was not achieved since there were only two members present, Johnny M. And Johnny D., perhaps the two who can be considered the Founding Members of the group.

The June 29th date had been settled on nearly a month ago. The members wanted to get a card in before the early transition to Saratoga, and the perhaps prolonged hiatus from Belmont due to the construction of the new arena for the Islanders, a thoroughly ambitious plan that puts a hockey arena within a horseshoe throw of the Belmont grandstand.

It is not yet yet fully known if the 2020 Belmont Stakes will even be at Belmont. It is possible it could be run at Aqueduct. Fine by me. I no longer try and even go. Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.

The card for Saturday's racing was anemic. There were only 61 horses for what was only a 9-race card, rather than the usual 10-race weekend card. There were three 5-horse fields, with eight being the highest number of horses entered in a race. Three races at the recently run Ascot meet accounted for more entrants than found lining up at Belmont. Sunday's card is no improvement, with only eight! races filled. Unheard of. Troubled times have come to the horse racing industry.

The only added attraction for us on Saturday was the entry of Cassies Dreamer in The Mother Goose, a race that once was part of a NYRA promoted filly Triple Crown, but no longer seen as such. Years ago, The Acorn, The Mother Goose and The Coaching Club American Oaks were linked by NYRA and billed as the "Filly Triple Crown," the "Tiara."

The designation was discontinued in 2009, but I saw many of the horses that did complete the series with three victories, notably Dark Mirage, Shuvee, Chris Evert and Ruffian. Davona Dale, Mom's Command and Open Mind were three winners that came later.

The Assembled live vicariously through the majority ownership of Cassies Dreamer by Bobby G's longtime friend, Hayward (Richie) Pressman. True ownership will likely elude The Assembled forever.

Cassies Dreamer has been written about several times in these postings as she progresses from her 2-year-old start to her 3-year-old campaign. Going into The Mother Goose she has six starts, two firsts and a nice sum of $224,2540 in earnings. Richie has shed his New York Bred beginnings and gone all in on Cassies Dreamer in the emotional attachment department.  It is love.

I've met Richie several times and wanted to wish him well. I rightly figured he'd be coming out of the Trustees' Room and heading for the paddock for the saddling of the 8th race.

I caught Richie's attention with my Cassies Dreamer cap that he so generously sent me, and met his entourage, Peter, Rusty Jones, a Kentuckian who is a co-owner of the horse and the managing partner of Turf Stable Racing, and Richie's lovely wife Donna—who Richie named one of his horses after—Sweet Moving D— to acknowledge her love of dancing.

I cadged an invite to the paddock, which admittedly was an ulterior motive for the "ambush" outside the Trustees' Room. The only times I've ever been in the paddock have been because Richie had a horse running. My highest win payouts have been achieved with Richie's horses. I love the times his horses meet my bets in the winner's circle.

The Belmont paddock is usually as tranquil as a monastery, but Saturday it was a bit frantic. Usually the owners meet the jockeys and the trainers, and exchange some small talk before the jocks are told to report for "riders up."

But Saturday was different. A threatened thunder storm was rolling in right on time, with the skies darkening, wind picking up a bit, and lightening flashing in the distance. The jocks went straight to the stalls, mounted, and were told to stay there by the paddock judge. No one wanted anyone to get whacked by lightening.

The jocks were told to go straight to the post, and post time was moved up in hopes of beating the weather. I did get to shake Barclay Tagg's hand, but could exchange no words.

Barclay is 81, thin, well dressed in a blazer, tie and patterned shirt, holding himself with an almost military bearing of a Captain in the Queen's Artillery Regiment. Because of his first name, for years and years I always assumed he was British. Turns out he's very much an American, a graduate of Penn State, and a former steeplechase jockey, a fact I just learned through that marvelous creation, the Internet.

I'd been playing his horses for years, with good success with his turf entrants. I started following him back in the late '80s, so when he got all the attention for his 2003 training of Funny Cide, winner of the Derby and the Preakness, he he was already a household name to me.

I keep a picture of Julie Krone holding up five fingers as she guides her fifth winner to the Saratoga winner's circle on August 20, 1993. Five wins on a card put her with some notable achievers, Angel Cordero and Ron Turcotte. Nice company to join..

Online I brought up the NYT coverage of her achievement in Saturday's paper. I re-read the piece and was reminded that another female jockey  Georgina Frost, rode two winners that day on the card. Thus, female jockeys rode 7 of the 10 winners that day. Historic.

I would have liked to confirm something I always tell people: that two of Julie's winners that day were trained by Barclay Tagg.

It is no shame in racing to lose to a superior entrant, And this year's Mother Goose was no exception. In the race as the 1 horse was Dunbar Road, a Chad Brown trained filly making her fourth start for mega-buck owner Peter Brant. Brant and Chad have been gobbling up victories ever since Peter came back into the game.  Chad leads all trainers at the meet with the most money won: $4.6 million. No one else even has $2 million. Brant is ranked fourth as an owner with money won: just under a $1 million. Attention will be paid when they enter a horse.

Dunbar Road deserved to have the money she had bet on her. She was being ridden by Jose Ortiz, who would go on the ride four winners on the card, and was sporting Beyer speed figures that were only going up: 76; 89; 90, with two wins and a close second in a Grade 1 race at Gulfstream.

She won with authoritative ease, and went off at 30¢ on the dollar, paying the minimum for place and show, $2.10.  Cassies Dreamer chased, even being in front of Dunbar Road three-quarters into the race. But the lion's share of the purse goes to the winner. Cassies Creamer finished fourth, and would take home $15,000 of the purse money.

I wasn't with the Cassies Dreamer's owners as the race was run, instead going back to my third floor Clubhouse perch to rejoin Johnny M. Will Cassies Dreamer keep going against stiff competition, or will the owners and the trainer start to look around for a more forgiving condition?

The horse is till eligible for "non-winners of two, other than," NW2x. And having started out as $50,000 claimer, the horse still has plenty of conditioned claiming eligibility or starter allowance conditions remaining. After a horse wins two races, the water gets deeper.

Cassies' breeding shouts turf, and turf is where she might move back into the winner's circle. Her race before The Mother Goose as taken off the turf. But, she won in the slop. If she does turn into a decent turf horse she'll be a double-barrel threat because the conditions that take a race off the turf are the conditions she excels at.

And the weather? Did it pour on The Mother Goose? No. The rain held off and delayed the 9th race with a typhoon-type downpour. Unfortunately for Cassies Dreamer and her connections, her race was the 8th race, the feature, since there were only nine races. Thus, she missed a wet track that would have greeted the 9th race, but that one was carded for the turf, and thankfully for me and the winner I picked, did remain on the turf.

Cassies Dreamer loves the slop. Some horses just outperform themselves when they meet the wet stuff. Cassies Dreamer missed getting her favorite surface by about a half hour. Such is racing. The racing Gods did not intervene.

Small fields, small payouts. Winners were picked to the point I was just about writing checks to myself. But the amounts were small; the enjoyment however remains huge.

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