00:00Darren, we have a really good renewal of the Stephen Foster to look at here.
00:04It's not a big field.
00:05We only have seven horses in here.
00:07But of the seven, six of them have earned over $1.2 million.
00:11Five have earned over $2 million.
00:13Four have earned over $3.6 million.
00:15Three of these have earned over $4.4 million.
00:18We've got two over the $6 million mark.
00:21We've got a Breeders' Cup Classic winner, a Kentucky Derby winner, and a Dubai World Cup winner.
00:26When you make a list of the five most prestigious dirt races in the world, those three are on that list.
00:33So this is about as good of a race for older horses right now as we could have hoped for.
00:38Yeah, seven horses combining for $25 million plus in earnings.
00:43That's one of the highest average earnings per horse that I've seen.
00:47But yeah, I mean, if you were going to draw up this race and what you wanted it to look like a month ago, this is pretty much it.
00:52And you can make a case, I would say, for six of the seven horses on some level.
00:57So it's a select field of seven, but it's a really good betting race.
01:01And you just have to find the value that you feel best fits what you want to do.
01:05A horse that you and I both like a little bit in here starts things out.
01:08That's the number one first mission who comes off of a career best race when he won the Oaklawn Handicap.
01:14And this horse has won some big races, no grade ones yet, but he's really talented.
01:20And I feel like he could get a great trip in this race, Darren.
01:23We're watching a replay of his most recent race, which was this win at Oaklawn.
01:27He should be able to save ground inside, maybe sit third or fourth in here and just get a good trip in this race.
01:34Yeah, into the breach here, winning between two horses, leveled off and drew clear.
01:38He's got a win at Churchill Downs by four in the alley.
01:41Sheba on the slop, there's a chance of some rain in the forecast.
01:43So that certainly shouldn't dissuade those who like him.
01:46He's rounding into great form.
01:48He's coming in off the best buyer speed figure in his career.
01:51If you're a ragged sheet player, you're certainly going to like the cycle forward that you've seen in him in the development from age four to age five.
01:58I think this race is going to come down to who gets the trip, because I think first mission and mind frame are both looking for the same trip here.
02:05Potentially, if Skippy Longstocking does send, like I think he will.
02:09First mission and mind frame both want to be the horse that's sitting in that catbird seat just off the pace.
02:13So it's going to be an interesting game of cat and mouse early.
02:16First mission at four to one, I think is good value in this field, though.
02:20Mind frame is a tough horse to knock overall when you look at his form and what he's done.
02:24He's won four of his six races.
02:26The other two, he finished second.
02:27And when he finished second last year twice, they were both races where it might have been his own fault, where he was a little quirky.
02:33He was still kind of figuring things out.
02:35But, Darren, you're going to kind of make a point about him that shows you that in horse racing, there's different types of ratings, speed ratings.
02:42You mentioned a couple of them, buyer speed figures, rags and ratings.
02:45We've seen time form U.S. ratings on the screen.
02:48And on those figures and ratings, while he's a great, accomplished horse, he doesn't necessarily come out of races that are rated the strongest.
02:56Yeah, that's that's the problem that I have with him.
02:59And if you take a look back at his efforts in the Haskell and the Belmont Stakes last year, two races in which he lost, he has not run that fast again on just about any speed figure system that you use, whether it's buyer, whether it's time form U.S., whether it's rag is in.
03:17And I get concerned about that specifically when you're talking about horses who are going from age three to age four.
03:23Sure. I'll forgive it for one race because horses need a race to come back.
03:27But if they come back in that second race and don't take a big step forward and look, I can't knock him.
03:32He's never run a bad race and he probably had no business whatsoever winning the Churchill Downs the way the race was run and the trip that he had.
03:40He's a very good racehorse, but he's going to have to run the fastest race of his life to win this race.
03:46And that does call into question when you have to look at, well, what's his price going to be and what's my investment going to be in him doing that?
03:53That's the approach that I'm taking.
03:55In a competitive race, if you have to pick knits with a short price, that's the kind of stuff that you're doing with these horses.
04:03Nine-time graded stakes winner, no grade ones.
04:06My only concern with him, he's been so well spotted by his trainer that most of his wins are in soft races.
04:14I think eight of his wins have been at three to one or under.
04:17Another one at seven to two, another one at four to one, another one at nine to two.
04:20So generally he's in races when he wins and runs well, where he's like the top contender or one of the top players.
04:28He's a little bit more of a long shot in this field.
04:30Yeah, I think what you're looking at with him is he's a horse that when he runs in the grade twos and the grade threes, that's where his bread has been buttered.
04:39When he moves up to the grade one, he's typically not quite good enough.
04:43The 2023 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile is probably one of the best races he's ever run behind Cody's Wish and National Treasure when he ran third.
04:51And that's kind of what we're talking about here.
04:53Now, that being said, his last, this is an interesting kind of counter.
04:57His last two races on the buyer scale have not been great.
05:00His last two races, his last race on a Ragazin sheet actually was really good at six and a quarter.
05:05And if he runs back to that, they say he's going to move forward.
05:08But I do often look at those Ragazin figures for Southern California and see they come in a little bit faster.
05:14He's one that's going to have to accomplish something at a level he has not done yet.
05:19Stone cold closer, but the Breeders' Cup Classic winner from last year, Sierra Leone.
05:23He's got one of the higher ceilings in the race, Darren.
05:25But the first six months of the year haven't been the best for him.
05:29He got backed up in his training.
05:31He was supposed to run in a race in Saudi and it didn't end up happening.
05:34Then he ran at fairgrounds and that race didn't really shape up for him, but he didn't fire.
05:39Kind of feels like this is a starting over point for him for the second half of the year.
05:43But I wonder if he's going to get the pace shape he needs because he really does want them to go fast early so he can come running late.
05:50Yeah, this is what we talk about.
05:52H3 to H4, the first race you can forgive.
05:55He's, I would expect him to run better.
05:58My problem with him is the Breeders' Cup Classic, he got the setup of all setups to win that race.
06:05I mean, they could not have gone any faster.
06:07And there's certainly a case to be made.
06:08And I believe in the case that Fierceness and Forever Young probably even ran a better race than he did that day.
06:13He just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
06:15I don't know if he's getting that same setup here, but I do think he's going to run better because he was a flat third last time out.
06:21And Mystic Dan was the Kentucky Derby winner last year, and he tailed off for a while, Darren.
06:27But he put his last two races together as the best races back-to-back that he's ever run in his career.
06:32So he's in really nice form right now.
06:35He's got a great trip inside, but he really likes Churchill Downs.
06:38Yeah, and I'll always love him because he's part of one of my better derby scorers of my lifetime.
06:42And he loves Churchill Downs, like you said.
06:44So you can't knock that.
06:46But the knock is he's never run a race fast enough to win this.
06:50And typically, wherever he goes, because he's a derby winner, he takes more money than he probably should.
06:55And if he's anything, I think his fair value in this race is more along the lines of 7 or 8 to 1 than 3 to 1.
07:01So I would say tread lightly if he's a short price.
07:04Hitshow will come running late.
07:06He just won one of the biggest races in the world.
07:09But when he was facing tough company in the U.S. before that, he was a little bit below this type of level.
07:14Do you think he's got a shot here?
07:15I mean, if a closer is going to win this race, why is it him and not Sierra Leone is probably what I want to think of.
07:22I thought he had a great setup in the Dubai World Cup.
07:24Forever Young didn't fire his best race that day.
07:27There were some issues in the paddock in getting him to the racetrack, and he was all washed out.
07:31So I think there was a lot of stuff in play in Dubai.
07:33And Dubai form doesn't always travel for good or for bad.
07:37He's never run a race fast enough, in my opinion, to win this either, especially in the U.S.
07:40So as one of the contenders, he's probably the one I'm fading the most.
07:44And as we finish up, we'll all be rooting for the D-Wayne Lucas runners this week as the coach is dealing with health issues.
07:50But I couldn't really make a case on paper, Darren, for Ashcroft. Could you?
07:54No, I mean, he's just not fast enough.
07:56It would be a tremendous story given the news of the week if this could possibly happen.
08:00But, I mean, obviously, this is a massive swing for the fences and no disrespect.
08:04But he would need to run the race of his life and then some to beat this group.
