Suburban-Return to Yesteryear

[Silver Charm]

The strength of the field in this years Suburban Hdcp is reminiscent of days gone by or Pre-Breeders Cup. We haven\'t seen this kind of quality come together in this particular race for some time as it seems most of the top horses duck each other for good purses and preferable weight assignments, waiting for the Breeders Cup in the fall. Should be some kind of race.

I have to relay a story from a few years back, pre-cell phone pre-simulcast. The Suburban that year was \"loaded\" with Track Barron, Carr de Naskra and many other other good ones from New York. Charlie Whittingham was bringing in \'Big Cap\' winner Lord at War.

A somewhat unknown Ky based trainer Shug McGuaghey was bringing in two horses with his primary shooter supposed to be Pine Circle. My race track buddy called me that July 4th while I was on the golf course and left a message on my answering machine.

\"When you get in call ASAP, Shug scratched Pine Circle out of the Suburban and is going with only Vanlandingham who burned up the CD strip four days ago with a sensational work. There isn\'t a bookie in the south end of Louisville who will take even a nickle more of action on the horse because everyone in town has \"bet out\" on the horse\".

I looked at the clock and saw it was 7:00PM and too late.

When I opened the paper the next day I read where Vanlandingham had wired the field, won by 10 LENGTHS and paid $20.00! True Story.

[TGJB]

Yeah. And now, back to the future--

When you see the number Mineshaft ran last time, you will see why I am moving the scale. The only good news is that the wide trip meant he didn\'t break VG\'s track record.

This testing of the graded stake horses is a good start, but begs the obvious question of testing all of them. If they had done this a year ago I might not have to move the scale. But not necessarily-- I did some research for some comments I will have when we officially make the move, and found some interesting stuff.

[Silver Charm]

TGJB,

I understand because your figures are your \'lifes work\' and touching or tinkering with it is a sensitive issue for you and I\'m sure your team.

As a player who uses Thorograph it really will not change for me. Seriously, if I had the Suburban Sheets in front of me now and added five points to every number the line will still read the same.

As far as the Drug testing goes why not start this year at the Breeders Cup. What\'s the wait?

They are going to start testing drivers on the PGA tour but not until next year because they want to make sure all the manufacturers agree with the testing procedures? What a joke.

PS-Volponi has blinkers on, does anyone know if he has ever run with blinkers before?

[Upper Nile]

I believe PeeGee\'s been putting on the blinkers and taking off the blinkers with this one dating back to his 3 year old campaign, maybe earlier.  Paraphrasing PeeGee\'s comments I\'ve read about this is he believes changing things like blinkers on and off as well as racing on both dirt and grass keeps this horse on his toes and interested in running.  I do know for sure that the blinkers were put on for the BC Classic last year.  
Regards,
Upper Nile-The Surburban winner in 78.

[Supah Blitz]

Upper Nile,

You the man (or horse??), you own this race.

Actually I intend on buying two copies of Mineshaft\'s Sheet. One for the track, and another to have framed on my wall at home as the horse with the lowest sheet number in history.

And then again maybe this Saturday in the Suburban Mineshaft runs an even lower number.