Moving into the 37th week of The Challenge series and we kick things off with a claimed horse. First, let me state that I made several claim attempts for the stable and won none of them. So the claimed horse is one that the stable had taken away from. MEGA GRACE ran in a mile distance dirt race and after losing by a half length in her first start for the stable, she came back and got things right. She kept pressure on the leader in the early half of the race and easily made it to the top and drew off too a 1 3/4 stride win. Very nice for the 3/5 favorite, but those odds attracted attention and she was claimed for a price of $5,000. She earned 25 BP’s in the race and gained an F and G sire cards. She had a short two-race stay with the stable but a nice profit of 55 BP’s.
Long time stable runner BABS SEEKING LUCK made his 10th start for the stable and moved up in claiming from $3k to $20k and wasn’t quite the game plan as I desired to keep him lower but the entry options weren’t there. And the goal is to snag those BP’s so we can breed something nice. So off he went and dropped to his normal rear of the field seat. He did make a late move to advance and finish fourth. 7 BP’s for the week and a decent F-card. We’ll hope to find something in the lower claim ranks for his next race.
The versatile BARK AT THE RAIN was also hard to place. He’s done well on the turf but I’ve found better efforts on the dirt while racing him. He’s another long time runner and also made his 10th start for the stable, this one in a starter allowance on the turf. The 10/1 runner had decent spotting in the third place and held that until crossing the 3/4-pole of the 7.5 furlong race. He couldn’t stay with the front runners and tailed off to 7th. Another G-card from the deck.
Finally we have NIANG who is our allowance runner and made his first start after a two month rest. The speed improved nicely too 102 but the results were not there as he finished 7th out of nine. He’s had good races for us as well as terrible ones, which this one falls in that category. I think it’s time to take him out of the allowance competition and bring him back to the claimers. One G-card was picked.
A rather mediocre week with 32 BP’s gained with 2 F-cards and 3 G-cards. This gives the stable a total of 555 BP’s and we hold a sire share in American Pharoah. The cards now tally 10 F and 5 G when added to last weeks holdings. I’ve traded them all up and that brings the cards to 2 E and 1 F, a lot easier to carry.
THE CHALLENGE TWO, a horse that was bred exchanging sire cards for a sire share and breeding to a mare has been retrieved from the farm to fill the vacated spot left by the claimed Mega Grace. He’ll be looking to improve on the fourth from his first start and should be ready to run in about two weeks.
This coming week, we are looking at three horses to enter the gate and I’ll be looking to claim a horse or two as the barn is largely full of 2 year olds that are resting.
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