So IEAH and WinStar Farm thinks Court Vision can take on the big boys and girls in the AUS-G1 Melbourne Cup on November 3? Just one of the world’s oldest (1861), longest (2 miles) and richest (A$5.65 million, or approximately $4.76 million U.S.) classic distance races—with a son of Eclipse champion sprinter Gulch out of a Storm Bird mare? A horse who hasn’t won a race this year in five tries, taking on the best conditioned grass horses in the world? A colt who isn’t even running in the G1 Arlington Million, the winner of which gains automatic entry into the Melbourne Cup field?
Honestly, why bother tossing your name into the mix if there’s basically no chance of getting in? No American horse has ever run in “the race that stops a nation” so, unless you are serious, why bother? Is it an ego-thing, or just something to use for some innate marketing scheme?
Oh, and, by the way, Court Vision switched barns last month, away from Bill Mott and into the clutches of Rick Dutrow—wow, what a tremendous ambassador for American racing in its first foray Down Under! The Aussies would be jumping up and down to see in person the trainer whose colt Big Brown flopped in last year’s Belmont Stakes, avoiding what the nation’s newspaper dubbed “a big brown stain on the underpants of thoroughbred racing in the United States.”
I suppose we shouldn’t take this nomination seriously—in the July 24 DRF, Dutrow notes:
He [Court Vision] doesn't seem like he's the happiest thing in the world; he should have more to say...We breezed him on the grass the other day and he went good, but he hasn't been eating everything. I think something's bugging him somewhere. He doesn't look comfortable to me. I don't know what's going on.
Maybe Court Vision could use a little Melbourne Bitter?
Nice drop Melbourne Bitter - a fine Aussie beer.
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