Bill Oppenheim, October 22, 2003–Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 103 and 101, respectively--good enough to win the FROM THE DESK OF... Juvenile most years, when the winners of four of the big preps did run. But Cuvee is not bred to win Bill Oppenheim two-turn races. Carson City is a great little sire (and what tremendous value, still at $35,000), but he’s SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY pretty much a true Raise a Native: two-year-olds and There isn’t anybody who follows the game who sprinters. The dam went two for three at two and is a doesn’t know by now that, in the 19 Kentucky Derbies 3/4-sister to the speedball Olympio. Under the second run since John Gaines dreamed up the Breeders’ Cup, dam are also Grade II two-year-old winner Call Now no winner of the previous year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (Del Mar Debutante); Grade II-winning miler Wild has won the following year’s Kentucky Derby. Now the Wonder; and GII San Vicente S. (seven furlong) winner winners of four of the most important Breeders’ Cup Early Flyer, all bred by the late Verne Winchell, The preps are passing the race: the Mahmoud Fustok pair of Donut King. It doesn’t actually shout ‘two turns,’ does Silver Wagon (by freshman sire Wagon Limit, winner of it? You can also point out F/M Turf contender Bien the GI Hopeful, trained by Ralph Ziadie) and Eurosilver Nicole out of the second dam, but, come on, she’s by (Unbridled’s Song, winner of the GII Lane’s End Bien Bien. Breeders’ Futurity, trained by Nick Zito) will be among Yet history is not as much against Cuvee as his those on the sidelines. Zito’s GI Champagne winner pedigree suggests. Favorite Trick, by Phone Trick, was Birdstone (Bird Town’s half brother by Grindstone, so much the best of his crop (except for Grand Slam, owned and bred by Marylou Whitney) is also sitting the who was badly cut into in the race) that he won the race out, as is Sheikh Mohammed’s Ruler’s Court, a Juvenile by five lengths and became default Horse of blinkers-on 14-length winner of the GII Norfolk, at the Year. He did win the GII Jim Dandy at nine furlongs Santa Anita. He’s by another first-year sire, Doug at three, but his contemporaries had caught up and Arnold’s Buck Pond Farm’s Doneraile Court. Ruler’s passed him. Johannesburg had never run further than Court’s defection is particularly surprising, considering six furlongs when he won at Belmont Park (a one-turn 1 he’s trained in Southern California, but Sheikh 1/16 mile) in 2001. He never won again, but he got 8 Mohammed and his advisers must have read the 1/2 furlongs that day. The race this year may be statistics. tarnished by absentees, but Cuvee can do no more than It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that, if beat what runs against him, and it just could happen the winners of most of the key preps don’t run, the that way on Saturday. His pedigree says he is beatable, chances of this year’s Juvenile winner breaking the but what can beat him? hoodoo at the 20th attempt are diminished. There’s been a fair degree of moaning about these absentees, Last Tycoon: The Second Coming but, you know, Messrs. Fustok and Zito and Sheikh In 1986, French trainer Robert Collet engineered a Mohammed have all been at this game a long time now. massive upset when three-year-old sprinter Last Tycoon All it does mean is that none of those four is likely to won the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita at 36-1. The be champion two-year-old. That’s up to them. lesson wasn’t lost on the wily John Gosden, who’s In the meantime, it leaves Ron Winchell’s Cuvee, come back to Santa Anita with Oasis Dream, Europe’s trained by the up-and-coming Steve Asmussen, the top sprinter this year. His current Timeform rating is even-money favorite to win Saturday’s seventh race at 134, 10 pounds higher than Europe’s best miler in the Santa Anita (the sixth Breeders’ Cup race). If Cuvee, a Mile, the French-trained filly Six Perfections (124). winner of four of his five starts by a combined 30 The Americans are in trouble in the Mile, is the way it lengths, gets the two turns, he’s 1-to-10. His last two looks from this corner. Either Oasis Dream runs as fast, runs, Jerry Bailey up, in the GII Saratoga Special (slop) or nearly as fast, at Santa Anita’s Mile as he sprints, in and GI Futurity, were wide-margin wins with Beyers of which case he wins. If he doesn’t, Six Perfections, one New 2YO Stakes Winners for Lane’s End Stallions A.P. INDY His 56th Stakes Winner: FRIENDS LAKE - $100,000 Sleepy Hollow S. at Belmont by 3 1/2 lengths, 1 mile in 1:36 1/5. PLEASANT TAP BOX 626, VERSAILLES, KY 40383 13% Stakes Winners from starters, including: (859) 873-7300 FAX (859) 873-3742 TAP DAY - now 2 wins in 3 starts for this 2YO colt E-MAIL: [email protected] WEB SITE: lanesend.com of about six really top-class three-year-old fillies in Europe this year (Russian Rhythm, Yesterday, Dimitrova, Nebraska Tornado, and--remember this name--Musical Chimes), should win. But both could be compromised by today’s draw. Gosden is quoted as saying between four and eight is ideal. Yesterday, Dimitrova, and Musical Chimes, plus Vermeille winner (over Yesterday) Mezzo Soprano are all in town for the Filly & Mare Turf, for which four-year-olds Islington and Bright Sky are the highest-rated Europeans. The American contingent is pretty salty, too with the Juddmonte/Frankel pair of Tates Creek and Heat Haze, Megahertz and Voodoo Dancer. This looks a very good race. I still think Yesterday is the best filly in the race, but she’s contrived to get beaten in her last four starts. There’s a big word for this year’s French 1000 Guineas winner Musical Chimes (by In Excess, so she should just about handle California). Apparently she made a huge move to just miss to Tates Creek in the GI Yellow Ribbon. High Chaparral, Sulamani, and Storming Home are all either are or were trained in Europe. It would be pretty surprising if one of these four doesn’t win, regardless of Santa Anita’s biases. They’re the four best horses in the race, and they’re all top-class. European Freshman Sires Europe’s two top freshman sires, Fasliyev and Cape Cross, have both generated more progeny earnings than Stravinsky (who is also third in Europe), North America’s top freshman sire. True, Fasliyev has had an amazing 70 runners, but they do include 30 winners and seven stakes winners. Cape Cross has 23 winners from 51 runners, four of them stakes winners and, like Fasliyev, another four stakes-placed. The jury is still out, obviously, as it always must be on freshman sires; so many turn out to be flashes-in-the-pan. But this does look a strong group, in Europe, anyway. Daggers Drawn and Orpen have 21 and 22 winners, respectively, and each has the earners of over £300,000 so far. Dr Fong’s second stakes winner on Monday takes him into sixth, ahead of Sunline’s sire Desert Sun, who has his first European crop, with Intikhab, French-based Verglas, and the ‘reverse-hemisphere’ Danehill horse, Danzero rounding out the top 10. Desert Sun and Danzero, particularly, have benefitted from big sales-race winners. Gold Away, Imperial Ballet (originally a Venezuelan stallion), Daylami, Second Empire, and repatriated Soviet Star fill the next five spots, and they’re doing all right, too. LEADING 1st CROP SIRES IN 2003 IN ORDER OF PRIZE MONEY WON IN EUROPE Black Type Rnk Sire (YOB) Grandsire Rnrs Wnrs Wins Prize £ Wn Pl 1 FASLIYEV (1997) Nureyev 70 30 50 814,145 7 4 2 CAPE CROSS (1994) Green Desert 51 23 41 673,005 4 4 3 STRAVINSKY (1996) Nureyev 39 16 23 342,532 2 3 4 DAGGERS DRAWN (1995) Diesis 53 21 30 303,703 0 1 5 ORPEN (1996) Lure 64 22 29 302,837 1 3 6 DESERT SUN (1988) Green Desert 38 14 18 199,489 0 1 7 DR FONG (1995) Kris S. 46 11 13 196,568 1 3 8 INTIKHAB (1994) Red Ransom 27 16 22 175,956 0 1 9 VERGLAS (1994) Highest Honor 18 8 14 173,901 1 1 10 DANZERO (1991) Danehill 28 11 14 165,401 0 0 11 GOLD AWAY (1995) Goldneyev 20 7 12 160,931 1 0 12 *IMPERIAL BALLET (1989) Sadler's Wells 37 17 22 160,477 0 1 13 DAYLAMI (1994) Doyoun 28 9 12 113,652 1 1 14 SECOND EMPIRE (1995) Fairy King 32 10 13 108,033 0 1 15 *SOVIET STAR (1984) Nureyev 29 7 8 107,134 0 2 16 CROCO ROUGE (1995) Rainbow Quest 30 10 11 101,235 0 0 17 SHINKO FOREST (1993) Green Desert 27 7 10 94,098 0 1 18 LORD OF MEN (1993) Groom Dancer 21 6 9 93,074 0 0 19 INDIAN ROCKET (1994) Indian Ridge 24 7 11 87,773 1 1 20 DOCKSIDER (1995) Diesis 36 8 11 74,819 0 0 21 PRINCELY HEIR (1995) Fairy King 8 2 5 63,645 1 0 22 STORMIN FEVER (1994) Storm Cat 1 1 3 61,957 1 0 23 REGAL ARCHIVE (1993) Fairy King 11 3 6 56,866 0 0 24 TIGER HILL (1995) Danehill 14 6 7 50,608 1 1 25 DUSHYANTOR (1993) Sadler's Wells 7 3 3 35,624 0 0 Includes stallions with first Northern Hemisphere crop *Stallions with first Irish crop Statistics by Hyperion Promotions Ltd.