FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2009 www.darbydan.com For information about TDN, call 732-747-8060. SEVEN TO LINE UP FOR STARLET CALDER CANCELS GRADED STAKES A field of seven juvenile fillies was entered yesterday Calder Race Course has announced that it will not for Sunday=s GI Hollywood Starlet S. at Hollywood reschedule the GIII Tropical Turf H. and GIII My Park. Among the line-up is GI Breeders= Cup Juvenile Charmer H. Both races were initially postponed Dec. 5 Fillies runner-up Beautician (Dehere) when the track was put under quarantine restrictions. A and third-place finisher Blind Luck portion of the purse money from the two graded stakes (Pollard=s Vision), as well as Breed- will be reallocated to Calder=s overnight purses. The ers= Cup Juvenile Turf runner-up overall quartantine that limited travel in and out of Rose Catherine (Speightstown). Calder was lifted Monday, but three barns remain under Beautician, who drew post seven restriction until Dec. 21. for the Starlet, has made a habit of running second in big races during WILDCAT HEIR SETS 2YO WINNERS RECORD her young career. The Ken McPeek- First-crop sire Wildcat Heir (Forest Wildcat) broke the trained filly was runner-up in both Northern Hemisphere record for two-year-old winners the GIII Schuylerville S. and when Future Heiress crossed GI Spinaway S. After running fifth the finish line in front in yester- at Keeneland in the GI Darley day=s first race at Calder. The Alcibiades, she rebounded with a bay filly was the Florida stal- Beautician A Coglianese strong second behind She Be Wild lion=s 39th winner. He shares (Offlee Wild) in the Juvenile Fillies. the world record with Chapel Blind Luck, trained by Jerry Hollendorfer, will break Royal, whose 39 winners from from post three when she makes last year include a Kentucky- the sixth start of her career on bred victor in Peru. Wildcat Sunday. The chestnut filly cap- journeybloodstock.com Heir stands at Journeyman tured the GI Oak Leaf S. and Stud in Ocala. Winner of the was runner-up in the GI Darley 2004 GI Frank J De Francis Memorial Dash, Wildcat Debutante S. The Todd Pletcher- Heir has been represented this term by stakes winners trained Rose Catherine was off Karmageddon and Wild Mia, as well as multiple stakes the board in a pair of starts over placed Always Wildcatin=. conventional dirt in New York, but romped home to an 8 3/4- Blind Luck Horsephotos length maiden win at Belmont in her turf debut. She came up a half-length short of Tapitsfly (Tapit) over the Santa Anita turf and will try to transfer her talent to the synthetic track while starting from post six on Sunday. The field also features Bickersons (Silver Deputy), 2 1/2-length winner of the Nov. 22 Moccasin S. over the Hollywood strip. The Kelly Breen trainee was third in the Spinaway and Oak Leaf before running 10th in the Breeders= Cup Juvenile Fillies. Sunday, Hollywood Park HOLLYWOOD STARLET S.-GI, $405,250, 2yo, f, 1 1/16m (AWT) PP HORSE SIRE JOCKEY TRAINER 1 Miss Heather Lee Trippi Espinoza Baffert 2 It Tiz Tiznow Rosario Glatt 3 Blind Luck Pollard’s Vision Bejarano Hollendorfer 4 Amen Hallelujah Montbrook Solis Dutrow Jr 5 Bickersons Silver Deputy Talamo Breen 6 Rose Catherine Speightstown Castellano Pletcher 7 Beautician Dehere Gomez McPeek All carry 120 pounds. P TDN HEADLINE NEWS • 12/18/09 • PAGE 2 of 5 • thoroughbreddailynews.com NEWS TODAY LATINOAMERICANA TO CLUB HIPICO Club Hipico de Santiago Racecourse in Santiago, Chile, was confirmed as the host of the 2010 Gran Premio Latinoamericana, South America=s most presti- gious weight-for-age event, at the Asociacion Latinoamericana de Jockey Clubs most recent meeting, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina Dec. 12. It was con- firmed that the Santiago track will host three interna- tional races worth a combined $450,000 in prize money. The Group 1 continental championship, held in a different country every year, will be disputed over 2000 meters over Club Hipico de Santiago=s right-handed turf course Mar. 7 and will carry purse money of $300,000. The new races to be added are a 1600-meter event worth $100,000 and a 1200-meter event, both on the turf. Club Hipico de Santiago will play host to the South American championship for the third time. The Santiago track last hosted the event in 1995. Also at the association meeting, Mexico was approved to have its first representative in the 2010 Latinoamericano, while Peru was approved for three representatives. Hipodromo San Isidro in Buenos Aires will stage the Latinoamericano in 2011. www.pinoakstud.com FIRST ANNUAL TDN READERS= CHOICE AWARDS The TDN is proud to present our inaugural Readers= BUY OR SELL--Churchill Downs makes bet on online Choice Awards. We at the TDN have come up with our wagering favorite performances on the year and beyond, but we Ben Klayman, Reuters want your input, too. So from now until Dec. 22, we Meydan=s new world will be accepting your votes for additional nominees. Sarah Tregoning, The National Then, from Dec. 23 through Jan. 17, we will be accepting votes for the award winners, to be announced in the Jan. 22 edition of the TDN. All voters SYNTHETIC SURFACES IN NORTH AMERICA will be entered in a drawing, with five winners getting to choose either a framed 11x14 photo by Sarah K. Track All-Weather Surface Andrew, or a free full-page ad in the TDN. For a list of Arlington Park Polytrack categories and nominees, please click here. Del Mar Polytrack Keeneland Polytrack Turfway Park Polytrack 8 Copyright Thoroughbred Daily News. Woodbine Polytrack This newspaper may not be reproduced in any form or by Hollywood Cushion Track any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior written permission of the copyright owner, MediaVista. Santa Anita Pro-Ride Information as to the American races, race results and Golden Gate Tapeta Footings earnings was obtained from results charts published in Presque Isle Downs Tapeta Footings Daily Racing Form and utilized here with the permission OBS Training Center Safetrack of the copyright owner, Daily Racing Form. P TDN HEADLINE NEWS • 12/18/09 • PAGE 3 of 5 • thoroughbreddailynews.com But Pletcher=s numbers just don=t compare. With 2,108 victories and counting during the decade, he won nearly twice as many races as Frankel did, but his WRITERS UP exploits were as much about quantity as quality. He won 67 Grade I races during the decade and his stable RACING’S BEST (2000-2009) earned $157.2 million. That=s only slightly better than by Bill Finley Frankel, despite some 1,100 more winners. With just a few days left to go before we turn the page on a decade, it=s an appropriate time to look back Jockey: John Velazquez and celebrate the best of the best over the last 10 Jerry Bailey had a stranglehold on this category until years. Here is one person=s opinion on Horse, Jockey, announcing his retirement. Considering he lasted only Trainer, etc. of the Decade: until Jan. 19, 2006, you have to look elsewhere. Garrett Gomez has been the Trainer: Bobby Frankel nation=s top jockey the last few years, Frankel did his best work during the early part of the but he accomplished next to nothing in decade, winning Eclipse Awards as the nation=s out- the early part of the decade. standing trainer every year from 2000 through 2003, That leaves John Velazquez and Edgar but even his Adown@ years were spectacular. Frankel Prado as the top two contenders, with managed just one win (Empire Maker=s 2003 Belmont) Velazquez getting the nod. in the Triple Crown, but that was perhaps the only area The Eclipse Award-winning jockey of where his accomplishments were less than stellar. He 2004 and 2005, his mounts earned won 1,089 races and his stable earned $153.4 million. Horsephotos $168 million this decade and he won He won 138 Grade I races, a staggering number. In 2,574, 72 of them Grade Is. He won 2003 alone, he won 25 Grade Is, a single-season world more races and earned more money than Prado did. record. Considering that Bailey, Gary Stevens, Pat Day, Chris His closest rival during the 2000=s was Todd Pletcher, McCarron, Laffit Pincay, Julie Krone and Eddie also a four-time Eclipse Award winner and a trainer Delahoussaye were all still active in the nineties, this, who came incredibly far in a short period of time. by comparison, was a very weak decade for jockeys. www.coolmore.com P TDN HEADLINE NEWS • 12/18/09 • PAGE 4 of 5 • thoroughbreddailynews.com Person: Jess Jackson Racetrack: Keeneland Like him or loathe him, Jess Jackson came into horse Once the stodgiest racetrack in America, Keeneland racing with a type of hurricane-like force rarely seen has become the most innovative. They helped usher in before. He rocked a boat that needed rocking when it the synthetic surface era (to some, that=s a strike came to integrity in the bloodstock business, he against them), became one of wielded his checkbook every two U.S. racetracks to use time he saw a horse that Trakus technology, experimented caught his eye, won back-to- with takeout reductions and back Horse of the Years with have consistently offered a level Curlin and, of course, cam- of racing that is unsurpassed paigned Rachel Alexandra anywhere in this country. during the second half of her This was the decade when the three-year-old year.