The Challenge Week 14

After a very good week last week, could the racing luck continue into this week?   Four runners were sent to various race tracks in the sim-universe.  Three would be the favorites with one a long shot.  Here’s how they performed:

Last year, The Challenge had a goal of gaining 1,000 BP’s to acquire a top sire share.  When that was accomplished, we had enough BP’s towards the end of year to breed AP’s GOLDEN MUMMY using the BP’s on shares of American Pharoah, A.P. Indy and Mr. Prospector.  The colt broke his maiden back in March in his third start that followed a pair of seconds, all on the dirt.  This week, we gave him a test on the turf and running a mile for the first time.    As the 1/2 chalk choice, he quickly took the lead in what turned out to be a tiny 4 horse field.  He never looked back and coasted to the wire to win by two and a half strides with an 88 speed.  The speed was a touch below the 90 in his last start but he never felt any pressure and could have gone faster.  I’ll toss a question out to readers….where do we go from here?  Keep on turf?  Go back to dirt?  He’s looking like both surfaces will work.

The win was worth 37 BP’s and a pair of cards which were an F and a G.

Next up was DUNCAN BIRD, the 16/1 longshot for the week.   She was making her 8th career start and was bred last year using a random sire card to breed with a retired mare.  This week was a run in a $12,500 claiming at 6 furlongs and Duncan ran fourth early on but had nothing and faltered to 7th with a 72 speed.  While the speed number is her best thus far, she doesn’t seem to have much talent.  With that said, she has won 3 times (yea, I know, I just accused her of not having much talent despite winning three times) but the speed numbers just have not advanced with any significance.  I’ll be entering her into the Auction.   Her last race with the stable netted 1 G card.

2/1 favorite KYRGYZSTAN was making his eighth start for the stable and I kept him on the dirt for his third straight start on the surface.  Previously, he raced his entire career on the turf.  After a nice third and a second (with 105 & 104 speeds) in starter allowances, it took a lower 101 speed to get his first dirt victory.  The win was a strong one as he fell back to 7th in the nine horse field and was more than five strides back at the half of the 9f starter allowance ($60,000 tag).  He put on the speed burners and quickly galloped to the lead and left the field a good three lengths behind.   15 BP’s were nice to obtain and in the larger field we collected three sire cards.  1 F and 2 G.

Our third favorite at 2/1 odds came in the form of winless THE CHALLENGE TWO.  Like Duncan Bird above, he was bred by using a sire share to a retired mare.   He was entered into his first turf week this week going in a $7,500 claiming at a 5.5 furlong sprint distance.  He took a mid-field position early on and took his time and slowly advanced forward.   It took a photo to make it official….he was the winner and broke his maiden.    A tidy 37 BP’s were very nice to obtain and a pair of cards that included an F and a G.

Filling the vacancy left by Duncan Bird who is heading to the auction will be STELLAR SPRINTER.  This is a 5 year old horse the stable acquired a couple of weeks ago for the expensive amount of $50,000.  He’s an established winner with 15 victories over 22 starts.   He has stake potential as last September he was second in his only listed stake appearance. He’ll be training for the next couple of weeks and he’s now eligible for the starter allowance class, but I’m leaning more to the higher allowance level with him as he has hit 110 speed level in the past.  He’s also an aggressive front runner and I have  chilled him back just a tad to a 90 front running factor.  He’ll still bullet out for the lead but I’m hopeful he can retain some strength to use in the stretch with the lower number.

Ok, we have picked up 89 BP’s this week and a bit better draw on the cards then last week with 3-F and 5-G’s.  I have exchanged the G-cards in for a 4th F.   The stable now holds 2-D, 4-F and 1-G along with 764 BP’s.

2019 has been a good year thus far and Thechallenge2 stable has had 35 races with a record of 14-9-4 with a 40% win record and 77% ITM.   This coming week we have four horses eligible to be entered.

2d 1g

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