Popular grey three-year-old stamped his authority on three-year-old division with decisive performance in the Travers Stakes – but a spate of equine fatalities has cast a shadow over this entire meet, as Steve Dennis notes in his latest update
The West Wing, season 7, episode 17
Chief of staff CJ Cregg: Sir, you wanted me to wake you when there was a result.
President Bartlet: Do we have a winner?
CJ Cregg: Yes sir, we do.
Wake up; we have a result, we have a winner. His name is Arcangelo, hero of the G1 Travers, and now we also have an undisputed leader of the three-year-old colts, a sensibly priced favourite for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and a horse it is easy to rally behind.
On a Saratoga afternoon once again darkly marbled with tragedy – with the abiding memory once again the very conspicuous, very public deaths of two very good horses simply doing the job for which they were bred, born and prepared superbly – it’s only part of being human to strive for an upside. Thankfully, Arcangelo, who added the Travers to his victories in the G1 Belmont and G3 Peter Pan, is all upside.
“I guess the more this horse does, the more we’re going to keep writing history,” said trainer Jena Antonucci, who was the first woman to train a Triple Crown race winner and is the second woman to train a Travers winner.
“I’m just so glad the race has helped to validate he’s not a fluke, a one-hit wonder. It allows him to be validated and I’m grateful for that. Horse and team, I’m most proud of that.”
Admittedly, a one-length defeat of the game but unspectacular Disarm doesn’t prompt immediate thoughts of ‘roll over Damascus and tell Citation the news’, but this time function outweighs form.
It’s a watershed moment in the campaign, last year’s champion Forte beaten eight lengths, Preakness winner National Treasure and Kentucky Derby winner Mage sent packing, finally the hinge upon which the year may swing.
Arcangelo seems an anomaly at the top level of US racing in that stamina is his forte. He is a stout-hearted, determined runner who might not be seen at his best at a mile-eighth, the distance at which he barely scrambled home in the Peter Pan.
He goes long, like so many of the heroes of the past, and probably goes well into the red zone of exertion as a result.
Antonucci is wisely training him accordingly, giving him plenty of time between his races. Although that might not be popular with certain sections of onlookers, the trainer is not the type to be swayed from her hard-gained beliefs.
“Of course the Breeders’ Cup is on the radar, but horses don’t care about schedules or spreadsheets,” she says. “We’ll do what we’ve been doing and give him his space. We’ll let him pave the way.”
He is certainly doing that, as he is a long way down the road in consideration for divisional honours and naturally part of the conversation for Horse of the Year.
Arcangelo’s emergence as potential champion from the scrum of those who coulda been contenders was just what everyone needed in a general sense – and also one specific to Saturday, when the holiday mood was first darkened by the death of Nobel, fatally injured when galloping out after the fifth race, and then extinguished by the catastrophic terminal injury sustained by New York Thunder in the H. Allen Jerkens Memorial.
Bizarrely, and horrifically, New York Thunder’s accident occurred in exactly the same manner as the one that befell Maple Leaf Mel three weeks earlier. He was clear and certain to win his race before calamity intervened, and the enormity of it stunned the festival-day crowd into silence and introspection.
There is an uneasy balance to be struck between the undiluted pleasure of watching these great equine athletes in action and the knowledge that disaster may be just a stride away, and each person has his or her own position on the subject.
It seems that we must rise above it or go under, go forward or go down, and horses such as Arcangelo help immensely as we endeavour to rationalise the issue.
“It seems to me he’s a super horse. Keep our fingers crossed, keep him sound,” said his jockey Javier Castellano, who is having a summer he will never forget. “All the credit to Jena. She does such a good job with the horses.”
Keep our fingers crossed. For Arcangelo and Antonucci, certainly, and as we know too well, for every horse who comes willingly down the stretch in the name of our entertainment.
Good karma: Steve Asmussen, Ron Winchell and Gun Runner
It was a magnificent Saturday at the Spa that could yet have been even more spectacular for the trainer-owner-sire triumvirate, who struck with the sizzlingly fast Echo Zulu in the G1 Ballerina, with the indomitably gnarly Gunite in the G1 Forego, and were close but not quite with Travers runner-up Disarm, who nevertheless put himself into the picture for a big fall campaign.
“She’s as fast as a horse can go,” said Asmussen of Echo Zulu, now nine-for-11 and heading for another crack at the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint.
“The development that she has shown is so much like Gun Runner. The longer you had him, the faster he was, and that’s how she’s been.
“And it was a very tough defeat for Gunite [last time] and for him to not blink an eye, come back and lay it down again today, just proves what a special horse he is.”
Bad karma: Saratoga
Obviously not every year can be a vintage year, otherwise the words lose their meaning, but this year’s meet at the Spa has been slowly withering on the vine.
Twelve fatalities (eight on-track, four in training), the two turf courses being basically unfit for purpose during a rainy summer with 59 races switched to the main track – this Saratoga meet is destined to be remembered for the wrong reasons, despite some fine equine performances.
“We have to get to the bottom of this, and we have to be proactive and aggressive if there are answers to be found, if there is a direction to be found,” said David O’Rourke, CEO of the New York Racing Association, speaking to the Daily Racing Form.
He was talking about the fatalities, but it’s a good stance to take when reviewing much of 2023 at Saratoga.
Got your number
Hold on just a cotton-pickin’ minute. What was seemingly done and dusted is undone and, well, dusty. The race to be champion trainer at the Spa is very much in play, whatever the hubristic analysis offered in last week’s column.
Chad Brown, who had a forgettable week, is now only two ahead of Linda Rice, who had a memorable week. It’s 30-28 with six days to go, and you wouldn’t want to be too dogmatic about the destination of the title whichever way you’re betting.
Irad Ortiz, on the other hand, is home and dry (as well as done and dusted). He has 50 wins, is 18 clear of his younger brother Jose, and will be the leading jockey at the meet.
One to watch: Fierceness
Todd Pletcher and owner Mike Repole were out of luck with Nest (only third behind Idiomatic in G1 Personal Ensign) and Forte (fourth G1 Travers), but there was a reason to be cheerful in the shape of this City Of Light colt, who blitzed gate-to-wire in a six-furlong maiden on Friday to win by 11¼ lengths.
He is earmarked for the G1 Champagne over a mile at Aqueduct on October 7, a ‘win-and-you’re-in’ contest for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and such a fast-track schedule indicates the esteem in which he is held by connections.
“He had been training really well leading up to it,” said Pletcher. “We were expecting a good effort, but he actually delivered an even better one than we were hoping for.”
Quotes of the week
“The significance of accomplishing anything in any gender at the top of any sport or industry is a gift.”
Jena Antonucci, who continues to make history via the exploits of Travers hero Arcangelo
“I feel like on the backside I had so much horse, I could have blown by them and opened up by 10.”
Arcangelo’s jockey Javier Castellano reflects on a decisive victory.
“It means a lot to beat the best trainers, the best horses on the turf, at the toughest meet.”
Mertkan Kantarmaci, trainer of Evvie Jets, who sprang a 29-1 upset in the G2 Ballston Spa, the biggest victory of her career.
“Aidan [O’Brien] told me ‘He’s going to be lazy, so you are going to have to ride him, he doesn’t give you anything, so make sure you keep him busy’.”
John Velazquez knew what to expect from the undynamic Bolshoi Ballet, and the advice came in handy as the five-year-old powered to an easy victory in the Sword Dancer.
“She’s brilliant. She’s shown that she can win from on the lead, from way off the pace, on very firm and as soft as it was today. Doesn’t matter, she has a devastating turn of foot on any going and it’s exciting.”
Miguel Clement, assistant to his trainer father Christophe Clement, can’t find a flaw in Roses For Debra, who stretched her winning streak to four in the Smart N Fancy Stakes.
Forthcoming attractions – one more week only!
It’s certainly not the race it once was – Man o’ War, War Admiral, Whirlaway, Kelso x5, Affirmed, John Henry, Easy Goer, Cigar, Curlin x2 – but the Jockey Club Gold Cup is still a showpiece race and its current iteration headlines the final Saturday at the Spa.
This year it may be a duel between Clark winner Proxy and Stephen Foster runner-up Rattle N Roll, which adequately sums up where we are with the old race.
The two-year-olds sign off with the G1 Spinaway on Sunday, headed by the unbeaten Adirondack winner Brightwork, and the G1 Hopeful on last-day Monday, when Sanford runner-up Gold Sweep bids to close out the meet on a high.
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