CDI's YouTube videos like 'living' catalog page update

Like many breeders -- both new to the game and experienced -- I keep a close eye on the family of my mares. If an earlier foal of theirs, or a cousin or nephew, happens to be running, I want to know about it.

The same is true as a stallion owner. When one of Silver Music's relatively few (at present) offspring are racing, I want to know the outcome.

I use the Virtual Stable tool at Equibase.com as one means of facilitating this knowledge. It provides a no-cost way to track workouts, entries and results for a certain number of horses. (For a very small cost, since I have very few horses, I also use the Equineline.com Portfolio to track the actual offspring of my mare who has foals at the track, though it isn't as helpful with following more distant relatives.)

But today I was just thinking how much I appreciate the fact that Churchill Downs Inc. tracks (and perhaps some others I haven't needed to see) are posting all their race videos to YouTube, at least within 24 hours or so of the race being run. Now I can not only read the charts after a race, but within hours I can see how the horse really looked on the track. ... In a slightly small, or bigger and grainy sort of way, at least.

The video above is of a Sept. 12 race at Arlington. The 12-horse is Radical Fringe, the nephew of my mare Bushes Victory. Radical Fringe (by Van Nistelrooy) is the first foal of Tory's turf-sprint stakes-winning full sister, Broad Victory. He didn't win on this day, but it was his first race since last November when he closed out his 3-year-old campaign with three wins at Arlington and Hawthorne and a close second at Keeneland from five starts. And bear in mind that this race was won (impressively) by, Stradivinsky, a former Woodbine stakes winner of $325,259.

Final time was 56.27 seconds for 5 furlongs on turf; the track record at Arlington is 55.90. Not a bad comeback for Radical Fringe. And I like to watch him run, because Tory's little girl, Oracle at Delphi, is the spittin' image of her cousin, if only in color and socks.

Radical Fringe's half-brother has been running at a CDI track, too. Big Zeet is a gray or roan 2-year-old by Limehouse, and so far has been unplaced twice on dirt, devoid of speed early but plugging along at the end.

I'd like to see Big Zeet get a chance on the grass, considering his dam was a turf stakes winner and his grandsire, Grand Slam (sire of Limehouse) has thrown turf and Polytrack-types. Recall that Breeders' Cup Sprint champ Cajun Beat also won the Kentucky Cup Sprint-G3T, Grand Slam daughter Lady Digby won the All Along S.-G3 on turf, daughter Just Little is a G3 winner on turf in France, and son Ball Four won both the Kentucky Cup Classic-G2 and Fayette S.-G3 over all-weather surfaces.

I dunno if Big Zeet would like the grass, more distance, or what. But he's definitely not first out of the gate in the videos below, nor dominant traveling over Calder's dirt, though he was much a much-closer sixth the second than he was in sixth the first.