(Jockey) Alex Solis said he feels like a brand new horse, |
[Because he is not Breeders' Cup eligible, Desert Boom could win the Gold Cup by a dozen lengths and still not go to Belmont Park, not with an $800,000 supplemental fee staring him in the face; so there's no reason to leave anything in the tank on Saturday.] I expect he'll be sent to the lead, ... and it's a question if he'll get the mile-and-a quarter. I'm not sure he has the class of Perfect Drift or some of the others, but I really think the farther he goes, the better he'll get. |
As long as that stretch is, and with all that speed, I think we'll have as good a chance as anyone, |
Fort Myers' murder rate is several times higher than that in London, and you are three times as likely to be the victim of rape or violent crime in Fort Myers. |
He was hanging his head, his coat wouldn't turn - it was almost like he was depressed, ... Richard decided he was craving attention, so he moved him to a paddock near their house. His wife and daughter started feeding and playing with him every day. The horse perked right up, and when Richard went to training him, he was better than ever. After his second five-eighths, Richard told me, 'This horse has another Breeders' Cup in him.' |
He's really the first good horse I owned. So I'll remember every one of his races. |
I don't see any dimension that Lost in the Fog doesn't have. That's the trouble. Do you go after him early? Do you wait and make a run? It looks like no matter what you do, that horse can adjust. |
I looked at the races and was tempted to send both. But I thought there were too many off-the-pace horses in the Gold Cup, the same style as Choctaw. I didn't see any dead speed types in there. Someone will sit close to Desert Boom, but maybe there's a little better chance to steal the race. And I really didn't want to ship Choctaw and then ship again to the Breeders' Cup; that was a big factor. |
I've done the math. Between shipping, fees, everything else, if you win the Breeders' Cup Sprint you make about $350,000. I don't mean to sound negative, but unless you have a breeding prospect - and we don't - that's not a lot of money to win the toughest sprint in the world. |
If we're prepared and we do come in big numbers to visit the U.S. and Florida in particular, I think we're going to be pretty upset with the idea that some people in Florida have deemed London an unsafe place to visit. |
It's been a fantastic meet, ... I had a really, really good month. |
Let's have a meeting where I can address everybody's concerns. If at the end of that meeting they still think it's unsafe to go and the majority of people don't want to do it - fine. |
Post the London bombings of last year, every school that was signed up from the U.S. came and performed and did so completely safely. |
Well I don't think it's a good one. Let me put this in context for you, we had over the last twenty years we've welcomed nearly 100,000 Americans, some young, some old, to take part in this event. Every single one has done so safely. |
You've got to look at general crime statistics, road safety statistics and all that sort of thing in deciding whether a place is safe or unsafe to visit. And certainly London does come out better in all those mundane but much more relevant statistics. |