There's a lot to like about Old Fashioned, the precocious son of Unbridled's Song who won the Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct under a hand ride. He gives the impression of mental maturity, a confident and endearing intensity. He was all business. And unlike some of the promising California contenders, he won on dirt. (The trainers who don't intend to run their best three year olds over the dirt en route to the Kentucky Derby are nuts.)
It's hard not to root for his trainer, Larry Jones, or for this colt in his own right. It's always moving to see the innocence of a young three year old absorbed in his race, before it becomes a J-O-B (compare, for instance, Curlin as a three year old to his workmanlike efforts at four).
Against Old Fashioned, in my heart if not my mind, is his breeding. Like the late Eight Belles, also trained by Larry Jones, he's by Unbridled's Song. The Unbridled line has speed, heart, class, good minds and, it's suspected, fragile legs. The beautiful and game Eight Belles inexplicably fractured both ankles moments after her gallant second place finish in the 2008 Kentucky Derby and had to be euthanized on the track. Unbridled's Song himself had feet problems that doomed his chances in the 1990 Derby.
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January 30, 2009
January 27, 2009
Final Furlong
Sid and Jenny Craig's homebred, Chocolate Candy, winner of the California Derby as well as the Real Quiet Stakes, is my current very early favorite to watch for the Kentucky Derby. I love his breeding - he's by first year sire Candy Ride out of the Seattle Slew mare Crownette - and the look of him in full flight is riveting. Each stride seems to float him in the air a beat longer than the other horses. His high front leg action gives him the look of a turf horse, but Barbaro and Secretariat, for two, ran the same way. His front leg action is wide as well, a worry in some people's eyes, but his way of going looks all of a piece. He reaches out to the very full exent of his front legs, and the length of that reach is especially eye-catching.
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