Invasor's Retirement Leaves Big Void At The Top

Hollywood and Belmont Park Attempt to Fill It with a Pair of Grade 1's

A Column by Steve Davidowitz
June 27, 2007

The $750,000 Hollywood Gold Cup (G1) at Hollywood Park and the $400,000 Suburban Handicap (G1) at Belmont Park this coming Saturday couldn't come at a better time. With the sudden and unfortunate retirement of 2006 Horse of the Year Invasor due to a sesamoid fracture to his right rear leg after a workout last Saturday, the two races for older horses on opposite coasts will give several good horses a chance to fill a very big void at the top of American Thoroughbred rankings.

Realistically, no matter which horses win these two rich races or how impressively they accomplish their respective tasks, no horse is likely to make people forget Invasor so quickly.

Unbeaten in five starts in the United States, including the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) last fall, and the winner of the $6 million Dubai World Cup (G1) in March, Invasor was on par with Ghostzapper, the meteoric 2004 Horse of the Year who bowed out with an injury after a dominating victory in the 2005 Metropolitan Mile Handicap (G1).

Having spent considerable time ranking America's best older horses for my current book, The Best and Worst of Thoroughbred Racing, there is no doubt in my mind that Invasor and Ghostzapper are among the top 15 older horses of the past 50 years.

Frankly, in my weighted rankings against each other, at nine furlongs I would place Ghostzapper at 134 pounds to Invasor's 132, but at 1 1/4 miles I would reverse those rankings and bet everything in my pocket on Invasor.

Invasor is gone now to the breeding shed where so many stars of the American racing scene go prematurely - either through injury or via prodding by breeders who willingly invest small fortunes to get these horses to stud. Huge fortunes can be made at $100,000 or more per covered mare and several millions of dollars will be spent for their offspring in the yearling sales ring.

Invasor's retirement can't be blamed on breeders this time any more than Florida Derby winner Scat Daddy's equally sudden retirement due to a lingering tendon injury suffered in the $2 million Kentucky Derby (G1). Yet it's a sad irony that Invasor injured himself after another excellent workout barely a week before he was scheduled to return to competition at Belmont Park.

The irony brings to mind trainer Carl Nafzger and owner Jim Tafel's decision to skip the Belmont Stakes and reserve Street Sense for the Travers Stakes at Saratoga on August 25 and a possible duel with Invasor in the 2007 Breeders' Cup Classic at Monmouth Park on October 27. While Nafzger and Tafel took the conservative approach, the irony that overhangs the life of every Thoroughbred racehorse is that no horse, no matter how fit or talented, is guaranteed to make it to any designated race down the road.

Aside from Invasor, it was a relatively quiet week on the American racing front - the calm before the explosion of high-class summer stakes that will be run on both coasts this weekend (please see last week's column in the archives for details). But before we get ahead of ourselves, we should take note of two outstanding performances on Saturday, June 23 and one noteworthy victory on Sunday, June 24.

Saturday, June 23, Belmont Park: the $190,000 New York Stakes (G2) for fillies and mares three years old and up, 1 1/4 miles on a firm turf course.

Makderah overpowered a well-balanced field of fillies and mares with a final quarter-mile blitz in a lightning fast 22.50 seconds for trainer Kiaran McLaughlin. McLaughlin certainly appreciated the good outcome after losing Invasor, who he had trained to perfection.

"She looked like a Grade 1 filly winning an allowance race last time out and now she showed that she probably can run with the very best turf fillies in the country," McLaughlin said. Frankly, it is difficult to disagree with McLaughlin's assessment.

Saturday, June 23, Monmouth Park: the $150,000 Salvator Mile (G3) for three-year-olds and up.

Contested around two turns on the track that will host the Breeders' Cup on October 26 and 27, Gotcha Gold set the pace and outlasted heavily favored Lawyer Ron in sharp performances by both horses.

Gotcha Gold took the race by the throat under jockey Chuck Lopez' aggressive front-running ride, earning a solid Beyer Speed Figure of 108 for the mile clocked in 1:34.25. The winning front runner set fast fractions of 22.95 for the quarter; 45.43 for the half mile and 1:09.39 for six furlongs, before completing his final quarter in a good 24.86 after such fast early fractions.

As for Lawyer Ron, thousands of bettors were naturally upset that he failed to win at 40 cents on the dollar. But he did rally well to close a four-length gap in the final 1/16 mile and rolled on by the winner a stride past the wire en route to a significant post-race margin. Looking objectively at this performance, it was very close to the ideal prep race trainer Todd Pletcher needed to see in order to plan a return trip to Monmouth for longer, richer stakes, including the Breeders' Cup Classic.

Sunday, June 24, Woodbine Racetrack: the $1 million Queen's Plate (Can G1) for three-year-old Canadian breds, 1 1/4 miles

This is the first leg in Canada's Triple Crown, which will include the 1 3/16-mile Prince of Wales Stakes at Fort Erie Racetrack in July and the 1 1/2-mile Breeders' Stakes on the turf at Woodbine in August.

This year's winner of the Queen's Plate was the lightly regarded Mike Fox, who rallied gamely between horses very late to catch front-running longshot Alezzandro. Heavily favored Jiggs Coz was unable to match the winner's surge despite being in perfect position behind and to the outside of Alezzandro every step of the way.

The final time for the 10 furlongs was a seemingly slow 2:05.45, with a sluggish last quarter in 27.97. But the synthetic Woodbine track was decidedly dull all day and the Beyer Figure earned by Mike Fox was a respectable 97, or equal to a Grade 3 stakes in the United States. Yet all that was of minor significance compared to the fact that Mike Fox's jockey, Emma-Jayne Wilson, roused her mount from between horses late in the contest to become the first woman to ride a Canadian Triple Crown race winner.

Even beyond that historical accomplishment, the true significance of the Queen's Plate from a much larger perspective was that it validated something that has been observed in limited opportunities: Emma-Jayne Wilson can ride in any league at any track in the western world and don't be surprised to see her prove that many times over in 2007 and beyond.

Next week: Analysis of veteran Lava Man's performance and others in the Hollywood Gold Cup; Metropolitan Mile winner Corinthian's performance in the Suburban; Octave and Boca Grande's duel in Belmont's $250,000 Mother Goose Stakes (G1) for three-year-old fillies and several other graded events on both coasts.

Reminder: Steve Davidowitz will be at Hollywood Park at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 30 for a handicapping seminar followed by a signing session for his popular new book, The Best and Worst of Thoroughbred Racing.

Steve Davidowitz has written two highly acclaimed books on Thoroughbred racing---Betting Thoroughbreds and The Best and Worst of Thoroughbred Racing. He also is a regular contributor to Daily Racing Form's Simulcast Weekly and DRF Plus and his columns appear in the Bodog Racebook each week.