Pair clear NW3L condition, continents apart

Scoring with relative ease, two 3-year-olds from my juvenile sales selections of 2010 garnered their third lifetime victories in races thousands of miles apart.

Lime Rock Revenge scored on Wednesday at Fairplex Park in California. On Friday, Sand Hi stormed home in front at Busan in Korea.

Dropped to the $8,000 level, Lime Rock Revenge won for fun at Fairplex. Lime Rock Revenge and all-time Fairplex leading jockey Martin Pedroza stalked Kayla Stra aboard San Darino through fractions of 22.63 and 47.08 before finishing off the early leader in the stretch to win by 4 1/4 lengths as the 9/5 favorite. San Darino hung on for second. Final time for 6 1/2 furlongs on the fair meet bullring was 1:17.97.

Bred in Kentucky by A. Clare Silva, Lime Rock Revenge is now owned by S.A.Y. Racing LLC and trained by Doug O'Neill. He won for the third time in eight starts, running his bankroll to $47,564.

I recommended the son of Limehouse-Genie's Flight, by Silver Hawk, out of the 2010 Ocala April sale, where he failed to meet reserve on a bid of $16,000 as Hip 1080.

After missing the break and going largely unasked in his debut at 2 over the synthetic strip last summer at Hollywood Park, O'Neill wheeled Lime Rock Revenge back in four days to break the horse's maiden for a $40,000 tag. Laid-up for the winter, Lime Rock Revenge returned for a $50,000 tag at Santa Anita on Tax Day this year, April 15, and scored impressively, setting withering fractions of 21.23 and 43.70 on his way to finishing on top in 1:15.86 for 6 1/2 furlongs. After a series of fifth- and sixth-place finishes among higher claiming levels on dirt, turf and synth, he was dropped in for the win Wednesday.

On Friday at Busan, Sand Hi won for the third time in 10 Korean starts, running his bank account to a U.S. equivalent of $91,014 for owner Kim Pyung Kap. He scored by a fairly comfortable two lengths in Class III competition, covering 1,400 meters in 1:29.

The bay gelding by Stormy Atlantic-Hay Lauren, by Hay Halo, was on my shortlist of 48 bargain-minded prospects for a client at the 2010 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale in May. He went for $20,000 as Hip 171 to the Korean Racing Authority (KOID), which resells U.S. 2-year-olds at auction to connections in that country.

See the records of all 187 of my juvenile sales selections of 2010.

Good Chemistry best medicine among Hoosier maidens

I've been remiss in reporting the latest member of my 2010 juvenile sales tips to find his way to the winner's circle.

Good Chemistry did just that Thursday evening, winning a competitive maiden special weight heat at Hoosier Park.

The dark bay gelding by More Than Ready-Sister Swank, by Skip Away was sent off as the third choice at slightly more than 3/1 odds in a good-betting race that saw six of the seven entries go off at odds of 6/1 or below. He was in contention throughout, gained separation from the field along with 5/2 favorite Tingaleo, then wore that rival down in deep stretch to score by three-quarters of a length. Final time for a mile over fast dirt was 1:36, and with the runner-up some 5 1/2 lengths clear of third-place Street Talk'n Man, it would be hard to argue that "Chemistry's" performance was anything other than "Good."

That might be especially so considering what was paid for the youngster -- a paltry $10,000 as Hip 113 at Keeneland's April 2010 auction, prompting me to label him one of my "steals" of the sale. I singled out the prospect for praise based on his solid sire and the then-colt's up-side as the first foal out of a Grade 3-winning mare who earned $389,989, was half to a pair of additional stakes winners, and whose dam was a stakes-placed producer of nine winners from 11 foals. The horse even breezed 21 4/5 for a quarter.

Good Chemistry didn't race at 2, and didn't fare too well in his first three races upon his debut at age 3. He was sixth among special weights in his unveiling at Gulfstream Park, then seventh and eighth in Polytrack and turf tries among special weights at Arlington.

Back on real dirt for the first time since his debut, however, he nearly collected a win in maiden-claiming company going a route of ground at Churchill on June 25, setting the stage for Thursday's winning effort.

Good Chemistry was bred in Kentucky by Aleyrion Bloodstock Ltd. and is owned by Thomas Meites and Richard S. Trent, for whom he has now earned $25,984. He is trained by Doug Matthews and was ridden to victory (quite well, I might add) by Orlando Mojica.

With the win, Good Chemistry brings my 187-horse Sales-Tip Class of 2010 to within one maiden-breaker of the century mark. The 99 winners from 187 prospects equals 52.9 percent of all selections.

The sales-tip class collected another foreign victor on Friday as Sand Hi was victorious for the second time in nine starts at South Korea's Busan racecourse. Sand Hi (Stormy Atlantic-Hay Lauren, by Hay Halo) was shortlisted as a "Priority 3" horse among 48 prospects recommended to a client at the May 2010 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale of 2-year-olds in training. He sold there for $20,000 as Hip 171 to the KOID, Korea's racing authority, which exported him for resale. Sand Hi has now earned the equivalent of $65,833 at Busan.

Sand Hi's earnings last week also have bumped that Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale group into the realm of profitability. About $1.13 million was bid on the 46 of 48 horses to go through the ring (two were withdrawn, only one of which has raced), and their collective earnings now approach $1.2 million. I'm about to issue a full update on that 48-horse shortlist and how they've fared vs. the remainder of the catalog; look for that by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, click here to follow all my sales selections.

Say 'Hi' to winner No. 73

Sand Hi outran his odds of nearly 14/1 Friday at Busan in Korea Friday to nab a half-length victory over second-favored Book Seven (13/2), in the process becoming the 73rd horse to break maiden worldwide from my Sales Tip Class of 2010.

I shortlisted the gelding by Stormy Atlantic-Hay Lauren, by Hay Halo, for a client at last May's Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale of 2-year-olds in training at Timonium, Md., where I considered him a "Priority 3" priority on my 48-horse list. The Murray Smith consignee sold for $20,000 at EASMAY, and was shipped to Korea, as were a number of my selected bargain hopefuls from several of last year's sales.

His first win came in his sixth start, with two prior third-place efforts to his credit. He has now earned $27,265. Sand Hi becomes the fifth of 12 sales selections sent to Korea to break maiden there, in a jurisdiction where 2-year-olds routinely race against older horses and maidens sometimes run against winners until those winners have banked enough bucks to move up out of "Class 4."

Sand Hi's win could have been just the first of many over the weekend for my sales-tip class, but fate wasn't on their side in races all over the United States and Canada. The class had seconditis this Saturday and Sunday, with five maidens finishing second in their respective races over the two dates: Abrianna by a length and a half among special weights at Keeneland; Vital Victory by a half-length for a tag at Gulfstream; Admitit by a length for a $50K tag at Woodbine, her fifth "place" to go with three "shows" from eight lifetime starts; Mugsy Dehere losing by two lengths among special weights at Charles Town (his sixth time in eight starts); and Uncle Carm being beaten a neck among special weights at Keeneland on Sunday.

Admitit, a $20,000 OBSAPR purchase, has earned $51,460 and Mugsy Dehere, who went for $40K at EASMAY, has banked $30,680, each without winning a race.

The seconditis this weekend extended to races among winners, as well, with Black Tulip being beaten a half-length among $50K claimers on turf Sunday at Keeneland.

Meanwhile, at Oaklawn Park Saturday, a late-running Alstom had his momentum stemmed coming off the turn for home, and by the time he angled out to find running room, he ran out of ground before grabbing a piece of the pie in the $100,000 Northern Spur Stakes. The $7,000 EASMAY purchase broke maiden at first asking earlier in the Oaklawn meeting among special weights, collected a fast-closing third beaten less than a length for first in allowance company next-out, and finished just a nose and a neck out of third in a stakes field in his third-ever start. I'm none-too-secretly hoping his owners, TBS Farms LLC, will send the son of Silver Train to Belmont and Saratoga for the rest of spring, summer and fall, so he can compete among his NY-bred brethren, as he's done well already in open company and there should be money to be banked in his home state.

With its 73rd winner, the Class of 2010 now boasts 39 percent winners from all 187 selections.

While the link does need some updating, you can follow the Class of 2010 here.

Exotic Korea: Trio of sales-tips combine for exacta in one race, plus a daily double, at Busan

How do you spell "daily double" and "exacta" in Korean? And do they offer the same sorts of exotics as American racetracks among the betting options there?

Those two questions crossed my mind this morning when I awoke to see that two of my juvenile sales tips of 2010 won back-to-back races at BusanKeyongnam racetrack, the first of them heading a "sales-tip exacta."

Fleeting Joy came home the winner by a length and a half in Race 2 at Busan Sunday, the 5/1 third choice in a field where the three top betting interests all came off my tip-list. He was followed home in second by fellow sales-tip and 9/2 Sniper King. The betting favorite, sales-tip Sand Hi at about 7/2, finished sixth, but beaten a grand total of about three and a quarter lengths. Since the online race charts at the Korean Racing Association's Web site don't include running lines or comments, I don't know whether he could make any excuses.

About 30 minutes later, two more sales-tips went to post in Busan's Race 3. In this one, Kidari Joe was the winner by a length and a half at about 11/2 odds over race-favorite Dave's Train, who was sent off at about 3/2. The fifth sales-tip to run in Korea on this day, Myeongpumtansaeng, finished last as the longest-shot on the board in Race 2, nearly 59/1. She was one of two fillies racing against nine colts and geldings.

Both races were Class 4 events for foreign-bred horses. Korean racing has no maiden races. Rather, a horse races among Class 4 company (either foreign-bred or domestic) until he has earned enough money to advance him to Class 3; sometimes it takes more than one win to accomplish, as it did for sales-tip Viva Ace, who finished second, first and first in three Class 4 efforts before promoting.

I recommended all five horses who ran on this day among 187 juveniles I selected on this blog from several of this year's 2-year-olds in training sales.

Fleeting Joy (Kitten's Joy-Speedy Sunrise, by Cherokee Run) is a dark bay or brown colt bred in Kentucky by Kenneth L. and Sarah K. Ramsey. He sold for only $7,500 to the Korean interests as Hip 476 at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co. April auction of 2-year-olds in training. I recommended the colt out of the same female family as G1 winner SIBERIAN SUMMER, English champ juvenile filly PLAYFUL ACT and others, then was a bit stunned by the price he commanded. Perhaps something on the vet report troubled buyers?

"A $15K RNA as a yearling, he's by a pretty good sophomore sire, out of a $102K-earning dam, breezed a respectable 10.2, and still didn't bring any money," I wrote following the sales session.

He's done OK so far in Korea, winning in his fourth start and hitting the board in two others for $25,763. (Runner-up Sniper King has two seconds and a third from four starts for $15,187.)

Kidari Joe, a dark bay or brown colt by Tiznow-Trickle of Gold, by Formal Gold, sold later in the same auction, as Hip 595, for a lot more money -- and still only $20,000. That price surprised me a little, as well, considering he's the first registered foal out of a Grade 3-winning dam who was victorious in 10 of her 20 lifetime starts for $467,709.

He also breezed 10.2 His dam sold in November 2009 in foal to Henny Hughes for $40,000. He struck me as on the short side, but he's solid as a side of beef and has acquitted himself well among the sort of horses that populate foreign Class 4 in Korea -- a group that might be limited in talent vs. maiden special weights at a premier American track, but which also often includes 3- and 4-year-olds, leaving the juveniles at some disadvantage.

"About as cheap as you can imagine getting a Tiznow, especially from a dam who could run," I previously said of this one.

His earnings from three starts, including a second place, have reached $22,780.

The two maiden-breakers bring the total number of winners to 46. That's 24.6 percent of all selections and a pretty fair 41.1 percent of the 112 to have made at least one start thus far.

The group has won 63 of 409 combined starts, a strike rate of 15.4 percent, and with 75 seconds and 45 thirds, their in-the-money rate is 44.7 percent.

Combined earnings have reached $3,192,809. That's an average of $7,806 per start and $28,507 per starter.

Follow all 187 sales-picks -- and a few pans, two of whom are set to make their racing debuts today -- in the list at the end of this former post.

Heart & Seoul: Sales-tips and Korean racing

When a dozen of my 187 juvenile sales tips of 2010 found themselves shipped overseas to Korea, I thought their careers might be difficult to follow.

While their races won't be as easy to keep up with as if they were racing Stateside, with charts posted by Equibase some 30 to 60 minutes after each race, I've learned that it isn't all that tough to find out what and how a racehorse is doing within the confines of Korea. And this is how things work, per my understanding.

With much help from the proprietor of the Horse Racing in Korea blog, I've learned the whereabouts, connections and even training condition of 11 out of the 12 horses I tabbed this spring who were sold to Korean interests. And the first of those horses, a Forest Camp filly bought at OBSAPR and renamed Our Camp (formerly called "Off to Granny's") has made her first two starts -- one a definite learning experience, and the second an impressive near-miss.

I've also learned much about how the Koreans manage their Thoroughbred racing industry. It's terribly different from here in the States, perhaps in some refreshing ways.

From a purely racing perspective, in Korea a maiden runner cannot start in an official race until he has passed muster in a trial run under race conditions. The horse must not only behave himself sufficiently and break reasonably well from the gate, one presumes -- which is enough in the States for the animal to earn its "gate card" and start racing -- but also must achieve a certain minimum speed for the distance, in company, under the competitive conditions of the trial, in order to hopefully assure that he will be competitive when asked to race "for real."

Another striking difference between Korea and the States is that there are few races carded strictly for juveniles.

Korean racing is primarily divided into classes based on accomplishment, not age. There are four classes for foreign-bred horses, and an animal can only move up from the lowest ranks, Class 4, once it has earned a certain amount of prize money.

This means that many juveniles will first appear in "weight for age" races, facing much older horses. In her August debut, Our Camp was sent off at 50/1 odds in a race that included many 2-year-olds, several 3-year-olds, a 4-year-old, and a horse that was age 5, albeit 0-for-27 lifetime. Our Camp (pictured above walking in the paddock and also with jockey Park Byeong Yun) finished ninth of 12 in a race won by a 2-year-old, covering five furlongs in 1:03.8.

(My source at the Racing in Korea blog suggests that due to training methods in that country, a young horse like Our Camp might be running five furlongs, "five seconds slower than they would be back in the U.S.")

While juveniles are facing older horses in these races, at least they're bad older horses. And some races exclude juveniles, so the ones that don't, I'm told, are carded primarily with 2-year-olds in mind, though what are almost universally unaccomplished older horses are eligible, too.

Another visible difference between the racing industry in Korea and in the United States is in the amount of information available on each horse and its condition. The information at present is available only in Korean, but (by American standards) a jaw-dropping volume of data is at the fingertips of Korean fans and gamblers.

"Korean racing has very strict rules on transparency," I'm told. "The racing authority is terrified that at any moment, the government might shut them down, so integrity is very important."

Novel concept: "If a horse -- any horse -- visits the vet, for example, it gets recorded and published. They don't do timed works here, but all visits to the track in the morning are recorded. It's intended to mean that every punter has access to the same information and that nobody can set up a betting coup. Of course, very few people actually read it all, but you can go to a computer terminal at the track and pull up complete, up-to-date information about any horse in the country."

That is the kind of information you couldn't get in the States without going to every barn, speaking to every trainer (and vet), and usually be told to take a very long walk off a very short pier.

Meanwhile, some splendid information is maintained even in English for every horse in the country by the Korean Stud Book. Here are examples for sales-tip Fleeting Joy, a son of Kitten's Joy who debuted with a place-finish at Busan. First, his main information page, complete left-side, right-side and head-on photos, country of origin, sire and dam's names, color and current owner in Korea; then his pedigree; his complete, 25-generation sireline, showing he traces to the Darley Arabian; 15 generations of dams, dating to a British mare named Bavarian, born in 1826; and finally, his race-record, including the most basic of past-performance lines.

So, without further ado (and with much help from my source who is handling the translation from Korean), here's the current rundown on my 12 sales picks of 2010 to have reached Korean shores.

Choego Chansa: Trained at Busan by Min Jang Gi. "Working well" and participated in a race trial in August. She finished just sixth of eight, but with a time that "scraped by" as fast enough to begin entering real races. Her debut in an official race on Sept. 10 was better by competitive standards, fifth of eight, earning (if this currency converter is correct) $1,936.

Dr. Drewman: At Seoul with trainer Kim Sun Gun. No official works as of late August (remember, works aren't timed, just recorded and reported) so he might be some time away from racing. But no reported medical problems, either.

Our Camp: Training at Seoul with Ha Jae Heung. Sixth of 11 in her race trial; ninth of 12 in her debut start. But, on Sept. 12, she "closed like a train" to come up just a half-length short, placing second to a 4-year-old (who was 0-for-19 prior, but still, twice her age), earning $8,034.

Fleeting Joy: A Jang Se Han trainee at Busan. "Working well" and passed race trials Aug. 7, then came home second in his debut on Aug. 29, earning $5,180.

Sniper King: Training with Kim Chang Ok at Busan. In late August, it was reported that he hadn't worked during the week. "The vet's diagnosis at this stage is simply 'exercise fatigue.'" Before that, he was reported as working well. Qualified for competitive races with a fourth-place finish out of nine in a trial on the weekend of Aug. 7-8. Bounced back from his "fatigue" to debut on Sept. 5 at Busan, with a third-place finish from eight starters, earning $2,912.

Myeongpumtansaeng: Name is recorded in the U.S. as two words, for some reason. Training at Busan under Choi Gi Hong. Only two works in July, became a regular worker in August. Probably a few weeks away from a trial.

Hanhyeolcheonyong: Name is recorded in the states as beginning with the letter M, not H. The first bit of bad news. This horse is at Seoul with Choi Hye Sik, but was diagnosed with lymphangitis in July and is undergoing treatment. Lymphangitis in horses is an inflammation associated with the lymphatic system, most commonly caused by a bacterial infection.

Daebak Chance: In training with Kim Jeom Oh at Seoul, this horse appears to have "cut himself up pretty badly" in July and is still recovering.

Sand Kahn: With Yoo Jae Gil at Seoul, but being given time off to mature a bit. Likely to resume training sometime in September.

Sand Hi: At Busan with Lim Geum Man. "Took awhile to settle," but went into full training in mid-August and "looks to be working well so far."

Viva Ace: This gelding by Macho Uno was the last to be named. Little information was available about him before, but now that he has a moniker, that should change.

Kidari Joe: Son of Tiznow is due to debut on Sunday in Race 4 at Busan. He is the 13-horse in a field of 14 -- pretty bad break on the post-draw -- and is one of six 2-year-olds facing seven 3-year-olds and one 0-for-17 4-year-old colt. Good luck to Kidari Joe.

Oh, and before we go, how pretty is the splash page for the Korean-language version of the Korean Racing Authority's Web site? And check the title in the browser top bar, in English: "Life & Love with KRA."

Life, love, racehorses. I'm not sure anyone could paint a better picture of how I'd want to live out the rest of my own life.