I agree with the idea that the race may be bettable because the odds will probably be such that it will make sense to take a stand against Buffy, especially if there\'s a big labor day tourist crowd & the real Buffy makes another appearance at the trk. What I don\'t agree with is that Santa Catarina is the one with, as the analysis puts it, the \"huge pedigree\" for this race. Her sire won the Derby, but so did Sea Hero, the sire of Sea Jewel. More importantly, SJ\'s dam was 5 for 12 lifetime, including 4 stakes wins. She also ran a 10 when she was 2. A recent BH study proved that there is a significant difference when the dam was a stakes winner, although to be fair the advantage is greater if the stakes were graded & I don\'t know if that\'s the case here. In contrast, SC\'s dam did not race at 2, never won any stakes, & is this is her 1st foal.
The statement that SC has \"worked well\" since her mdn score assumes a very fast work is a good work. The pt I tried to make in an earlier post, & which G Young made in the drf article, is that this is not always true. My concern would be that SC worked too fast, ala WE. SC made a big jump from her 1st race. I\'m not a fan of the indiscriminate application of the bounce theory, especially when we\'re talking about very lightly raced horses(although they are fillies), but one theory which makes some sense to me is that the chances of a bounce are higher if the horse works the way SC did. SJ\'s 7f works look good to me & may help her to relax in a race which should produce a blistering pace. IMHO, at 8/5 SC is not hard to bet against at all.
I have to respectfully disagree with your pedigree analysis. You really can\'t draw comparisons based on the race record of the sire; if you could Lil E Tee would be a better sire than Mr. Prospector. Pedigree of the sire wins out in the breeding shed which is why a horse like Silver Charm stands for much less than Coronado\'s Quest. However, in this case, we can actually just look at the sires record. Unbridled was a truly elite sire (Grindstone, Unbridled Song, Manistique, etc.) whereas Sea Hero failed and was sold to interests who currently stand him in Turkey. The only \"big horse\" he got was Desert Hero, who got that reputation based on one big race (beating a field which didn\'t turn out to be to spectacular) and never really repeated it before succumbing to EPM. Santa Catarina is not out of stakes winner but she is out of a Storm Cat mare whereas Sea Jewels out of a Stop The Music mare which isn\'t bad but isn\'t great. Again, pedigree beats race record. The bottom line: Sea Jewel has a nice pedigree, Santa Catarina has a huge pedigree. I think she\'ll be tough to beat but I think Mac Melody deserves some consideration just cause Hess is very good with his first out Europeans and I don\'t know how much SC beat last time. She got beat pretty good by Voodoo\'s Sister who is a nice filly for Nick Canani but who got beat bad by Buffy last time (both fillies had excuses, Voodoo stumbled and SC was steadied) but I still think SC has to prove she belongs in this class. Good luck.
Unbridled is concededly a much better overall sire than Sea Hero, but is he that much better, as I qualified it, \"for this race\", which is for 2yr old fillies? The TG stats, I submit, suggest not. In this situation, moreover, I believe the dam side breeding is much more important, & I will take a dam who looks more likely to drop an early developer over a Storm Cat mare who may very well produce better older & better distance runners sometime in the future. That\'s not to say that SJ will win & SC will lose, or even that they are the only live contenders. I just think that between these 2 mdn winners, SC\'s pedigree is not that much better than SJ\'s again, for the purposes of this race, & certainly does not offer much support for taking dramatically lower odds. Odds shouldn\'t be a problem for you if Mac delivers. Good luck to you as well.
You raise some good points, the only thing I would say about Unbridled is that he is a very unique sire. This is for a few reason:
1) He foals seem to be either a Grade 1 stakes or bottom level claimers. You either get it all or nothing.
2) Though he is usually a late developing sire, he also gets precocious horses who peak early like Unbridled Song and Anees who both won the BC Juvenile and were non-factors as three year olds.
Basically, Unbridled is like the D. Wayne Lukas of sires. He certainly gets a lot of nice horses, but no one talks about the huge number of bums he gets or the huge ratio of foals that never make it to the track. Also like Wayne, when they get going good, they\'re tough to beat. So while I use the TG sire numbers a lot, I think Unbridled is an example of a sire whose is so unpredictable that they\'re not that valuable.
Another factor to consider is that classier sires tend to be bred to classier mares which has two results:
1) Typically owners who have just spent a small fortune buying these well bred horses don\'t want to see them break down first out and hence, they don\'t get wound up at quite as young an age
2) Since a majority of the most prestigious races are around two turns, the horses with the classiest pedigrees tend to develop later and have a bit more stamina.
Anyway, all this is a long way of saying that I would rather have a 2yo Unbridled who could run a 7 then a Sea Hero, even ignoring the residual value factor. Whether Santa Catarina is for real is another question. I think I\'ll play Ionia and Mac Melody and back-up with Santa Catarina but I\'m going light in the race. Thanks for your points, it\'s always nice to have an intelligent, well-thought out discussion on this board.
Mall,
Looking at your pedigree analysis, and the probable odds scenerio, I think you make some very good points. Sea Hero seems to be passing on the Danzig speed to some of his offspring, and Stop the Music mares can obviously get precocious runners. I do think, however, that the ROTW has correctly referred to SC\'s pedigree as \"huge\". When you get a Storm Cat mare passing on such brilliant speed, you have struck gold. The reason why Storm Cat stands for half a buck is because people hope to get this kind of speed in a horse that may very well stretch out. Being by Unbridled, this horse does figure to stretch out, at least some. I like your analysis though, as you must come up with a decent angle in order to beat this big favorite. Good Luck!!