Good tidings from Gordonsville: It's a boy

I'm a little slow in passing out the cigars, but today's blog entry (the first in a few days, shamefully) brings good tidings from Gordonsville, Va.

The last foal sired by Silver Music, a Grade 2 winner who died on Derby Day, was born at 3:45 a.m. Saturday at Sarah Warmack's Hilltop Farm VA.

The strapping colt is a dark bay and sports a star, much like his dam, the modest winner Bushes Victory (Spartan Victory-Below Broad Street, by Kokand). He's already developed a reputation for being "such a flirt" around the women and girls who frequent the farm, standing to be loved-on and offering kisses back.

Which shows that at least he's no dummy.

I'd crossed my fingers for a filly (so I could add her to the broodmare band later, if she ran worth a darn), and also for a gray, like the sire. At least a gray would have been a fitting end for the big daddy. But that just wasn't to be.

Regardless of sex or color, the foal would be -- that is now, is -- inbred 3x4 to Mr. Prospector via Silver Music's sire, Silver Ghost, and the dam's dam-sire, Kokand. For proponents of the Dosage system, his Dosage Index is 1.80 and his Center of Distribution is 0.64, suggesting a runner who would want at least a little bit of ground. That would be consistent with his sire's performance, for while Silver Music broke maiden going 6 furlongs on dirt at age 2, his second juvenile win (in his ninth 2-year-old start) was a one-mile allowance on grass, and his signature win was in the 1994 Swaps S.-G2 going 10 panels on the main track at Hollywood Park.

However, one aspect of this mating that I liked is the female family's apparent penchant for speed. Though Bushes Victory only won a single race -- well, two, actually, and was taken down to second once, losing what would have been her maiden-breaking win at 3 -- she had some early turn of foot, and was usually on or near the lead in fractions as brisk as 22-flat for the opening quarter.

Her dam won the Alabama Oaks at a mile while there was still horse racing at Birmingham, and was 2-for-3 at route distances (with an allowance-placing on grass in her other try), but was primarily campaigned as a sprinter and hit the board three times in stakes races at 6 furlongs. "Tory's" full sister, Broad Victory, won the Somethingroyal Stakes at Colonial Downs (5.5f turf in 1:03 2/5) and was second beaten a half in the Phoenix Stakes at Meadowlands (5f turf in :56 3/5). And Broad Victory's first foal, a gelded son of Van Nistelrooy named Radical Fringe, nearly nicked the Arlington Park track records for 5 furlongs on both turf and dirt in his second and third lifetime starts at age 3, missing both marks by less than a fifth of a second.

I'm not a proponent of mating widely disparate types in hopes of achieving a "happy medium" -- that is, an extreme stayer with a sprinter, expecting to get a miler. I think you're just as likely to get a foal with the stayer's speed and the sprinter's stamina, which could be useless.

But in this case, I do hope that the dam's side's relative fleetness gives this Silver Music foal something I think many of the sire's get have lacked -- some early turn of foot. And Silver Music wasn't hopeless at short distances. As noted, he broke maiden at 6 furlongs (on the main track at Calder), and at 3, he collected his first stakes win going "about 6 1/2 furlongs") on the downhill turf course at Santa Anita, in the Baldwin Stakes. He also won the Bold Reason Handicap at Hollywood Park going a mile and a sixteenth, displaying true versatility -- stakes wins from 6.5f to 10f at age 3, on dirt and on turf.

Silver has had a couple of solid sprinters among his progeny, including career leading-earner Time to Rap ($169,894), and with a progeny average winning distance of 7.13 furlongs (at this writing) it would be fair to say that his foals have probably won as often at 6 furlongs as they have at a mile, a mile-seventy or a mile and a sixteenth. But on pedigree, I think many of his horses would have done better with more distance; it's just that getting two-turn races in the lower claiming ranks is sometimes a difficult proposition.

So, there's some speed on the dam's side, and a lot of versatility on both sides of this new colt's family. His sire was pretty good at just about everything, with wins on dirt and turf, from 6 furlongs to 10. And his dam's family includes dirt, turf and synthetic winners, with closely related stakes winners at a mile on dirt and 5.5 furlongs on turf.

Simply put, since this colt has had close relatives who are achievers at a little bit of everything, I hope he can do at least a little bit of something.

More than just being a loverboy, anyway.

Taken from my hands, left in Bobby's?

No offense to his family and friends -- or to humankind -- but I will always remember the day that Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel died, Nov. 16, 2009, as the day my first baby in this hard business met her own untimely demise.

I shared on this blog earlier in the week that Oracle at Delphi (Mighty Forum-Bushes Victory, by Spartan Victory) broke the humerus in her left front by crashing through a fence in a panic Sunday night, spooked by a falling tree. Another filly followed her through and was injured, but by reports I've received, should recover well.

Born March 30, Oracle at Delphi, the splendid chestnut filly with a huge blaze and three white socks eerily reminiscent of her great-great-grandsire Secretariat, didn't make it to eight months of age. She lived through the night Sunday, but X-rays in the morning revealed no hope of recovery.

And I'm not 100 percent certain that the full measure of that truth has yet sunk in.

I don't get to Gordonsville, Va., all that often to see the horses. I'd "met" Delphy twice and thought she was exceptional -- though admittedly, as her co-breeder, I was biased. Still, a trainer friend of mine, from photos I sent him, said the girl was well-balanced and had the right look for her age. She had a nice engine and appeared to be one that someday, I told myself, might really motor.

But in her short time on earth, as almost-perfect as she appeared, Delphy had her share of issues.

She first came down with the snots. Aggressive treatment took care of the issue. But when it's your horse and your money, there's no such thing as a "minor" ailment in a young foal.

Then Delphy suffered a pasture accident of some sort in which she bloodied her muzzle and cracked a small bone in her nose. Careful monitoring and a few weeks without her halter for comfort and healing led to a full recovery.

Now this.

In hindsight, maybe Delphy's was just a life not meant to be. Or meant to be for long.

I'm left to try and rationalize why fate chose her to take so soon, though of course there's no reason behind determining the victims in matters of fatal chance.

And I'm left to console myself with memories and frivolous thoughts, like speculating that Delphy must have been fast; after all, in a panicked rush of horseflesh, she was the first foal to hit the fence.

Condolences have flooded in, from friends, family, horse-business contacts and readers of this blog. Each and every kind word has been appreciated. True to the nature of horse-lovers, myself included, some of the seemingly most offbeat comments offer the truest comfort.

And this is where one Robert J. Frankel re-enters our story.

A member of a horse racing message board in which I participate, known as BigHorse2 at Yahoo Groups, passed along this thought, typed-up, she admitted, through a stream of her own tears.

"Maybe Bobby went to train Delphy."

My filly should be so lucky up in Heaven. She's due.

Radical Fringe: Bet him win-place and show a profit

Want one of the safer win-place bets in horse racing? Look no further than Radical Fringe.

I keep an eye on the 4-year-old Van Nistelrooy gelding because his dam, stakes-winning mare Broad Victory (Spartan Victory-Below Broad Street, by Kokand) is a full sister to one of my mares, Bushes Victory. And while the horse is lightly raced, when he does run, he tends to send you to the pay window.

Radical Fringe on Sunday finished second in a $40,000 claiming race at Keeneland, losing by a head to former stakes-winner Power Surge going 6 furlongs on Polytrack in 1:09.60. Thus, from six races, Radical Fringe has three wins, three second-place finishes, and $74,420 earned. And that mark would be better if he hadn't been caught completely flat-footed at the break in his debut at age 3, in which he was last early by double-digit lengths in a big group going only 5 furlongs, and managed to finish a closing fifth.

The horse is fast and consistent. He's won on turf and synthetic, and even when he's second, it ain't by much.

Radical Fringe broke maiden handily on turf in August 2008, missing an Arlington track record by 0.16. He followed that win with a synthetic victory at Arlington, coming even closer to a 5-furlong track mark -- 0.03 ticks (56.54). In his fourth start he was second beaten a half-length in a Keeneland allowance going 6f in a brisk 1:08.86. (By My Best Pal Red, a stakes-placer who finished third Sunday in Radical Fringe's race at Keeneland.) Then, "Rad" finished his 3-year-old campaign with a turf-sprint win at Hawthorne.

That's why I was surprised to see him resurface this year -- after a long layoff -- for a claiming tag of $35,000 at Arlington. He didn't disappoint in the race, finishing a hung-wide second beaten a length by former Woodbine stakes winner Stradivinsky going 5 furlongs on turf in 56.27. And on Sunday he came much closer to a win for a $40K tag, but was not among the two horses that were claimed.

The odds are never long on Radical Fringe; usually around 5-1. But if he places at least second (which he almost always has), you'll make a tiny bit. If he wins, you'll make out nicely.

And as consistently as he performs -- 6-for-7 finishing at least second place; beaten when he does lose only by horses with blacktype back-class -- I wonder how many more times Radical Fringe can run for a tag without getting himself claimed from Hugh Robertson and Wolfe Racing LLC.