some classic aspirants - a short commentary

Some 3 year olds and their chances to win classics…

This year‘s crop of 3y olds has a fair mix of ‘foreign-conceived’ and India bred well performed runners and unlike last few years there is no clear outstanding 3yo in the list of future competitors except Jacqueline who is certainly the best performed than all others. Whether she will be able to retain her position during winter classics, only time will tell. He (the time) is certainly a great leveller – though homo-sapiens unknowingly do help him .

Some of the 3 year old who are likely to perform well in coming months are listed below( in random order) :

Jacqueline , Versaki, Aboline, Gypsy Magic,confiserie, Sea Ruler, Sprint Star ,Red Renegade, Red Dragon, Messalina, Cabriolet, Mystic Quest, Classerville, Fleet Indian, Al Fatah, Spot On and few more , I’ve not been able to recollect.at this moment.

Jacqueline, Aboline, Gypsy Magic, Sprint Star, Classerville have been discussed on this blog on 9 Jul 09 and will be reviewed only if they accept to run in future classics run in October or winter.

I’ll post a summarized view on rest of the runners.

In my opinion, 3 most important variables (parameters) to win a classic race are : a)past performance , b) current form c) pedigree . To reach a conclusion I need detais of all the 3 variables . Performance and pedigree details are available but the ‘current form ‘can be assessed only few days before the run . Therefore, the opinion expressed below must be correlated with the current track of the runner before arriving at a decision.

Versaki :

Versaki(Verglas- Ghassak) is sired by a sprinter (Versaki) out of a stayer(Ghassak) – an universally accepted formula and he has won all his races tilldate including the last race of 1800m.
Verglas is a reasonably good sire and his main attribute – speed complements the staying ability of Ghassak who is sired by Persian Bold whose ability to tranmit his traits are proven by his progeny. Highest Honour – sire of Verglas is a miler, a middle distance specialist.(winner of 1600 and 1800m –grade I race) .

Ghassak(Persian Bold-Anjuli) has Roman Dodage(6-2-2-4-0) indicating clearly that she is more comfortable at route races and did win a 2200m race and produced winners over 2000m and 2400m .Breeding is not an exact science but analogy and produce history reinforces the belief that Versaki can easily stay 2000m. Ghassak – dam of Versaki, an ‘old matron’ came to India at the ripe old age of 14 yrs and Versaki is her 8th foal – born in India. Her(Ghassak's) damsire , Northfields is a winner of 2 US regional Derbies which should add few points to Versaki. He should be a live contender for races upto 2000m. If his current form , at the time of run, matches the competitors he should win therace.

Confiserie :

I was impressed by Confiserie(Placerville- Sprungli) win on 20/9/09 at Pune. Clocking 1m 51.1s
For 1800m , which is 1.5 second better than Yana’s on the same day!
She had nondescript runs earlier- following the footsteps of her dam ,but this daughter of Sprungli can definitely match strides with other 3y olds and should beat them if tried seriously. Placerville is a wellknown sire - sire of innumerable classic winners but Sprungli has run and won several races in classI including few graded races reaching a handicap rating of 122 which brackets her in top 10% of her contemporaries!.She placed 3rd. in Indian Derby and her maternal grandsire – Treasure Leaf was a potent source of stamina . Her Derby run was a classic example of how races are run and won in India. Psychic Flame (odds-9/2 ?)- the eventual winner (a Calcutta Derby winner) was 6/7th at bend and Sprungli (10?1) ridden by PS Chauhan ( he has ridden her in most of the races) was 11/12th at the bend . On entering straight Chauhan let her go and she covered ground beating all but two - the winner and the runnerup and ended only 1 length behind the Derby winner !

She also had the bad(?) habit of trying to win only when the odds were decent - 5/1 or 6/1 or more ! Her pet distance was 1800/2000m but she could have won if tried seriously over 2400m. Anyway, ignoring the imponderables , one fact comes out clearly and that is - she was a stayer and could have done better.

I'm not going to write a thesis and will stop here to point out that Confiserie is the FIRST foal of Sprungli and her performance will decide whether SPRUNGLI will be a multimillion rupees dam or an ordinary mare . Many breeders believe that only first few produce of a mare perform well and that is the reason 90% of imported mares in India are 9 or 10 year old! Finally I must say that after Jacqueline and Versaki I rate Confiserie as the third best western India challenger and if prepared suitably and earnestly she will be a live threat to these ‘imported’ Indians!


(to be continued…)