There are many ways to lose a race. One of the biggest downers is when your horse has some kind of mishap at the gate… the race is over at the start. So it went for Awakino Cat today. The gate opened. He was facing the wrong way, got pulled in the opposite direction, hit the side of the gate and found himself 5 lengths behind in a turf sprint, meaning he had insufficient distance to overcome the disastrous start. As the chart put it, “start good for all but Awakino Cat.”

Nonetheless, Ramon got him closer to the pack but instead of going around horses, Ramon tried to take a shorter route inside of horses and found himself cutoff. Finally, he got Awakino through on the outside and finished fast less than a 1/2 length behind the second place finisher. Bridgetown won the race easily by over 6 lengths. I don’t know if he’d gotten a good start, he would have been near Bridgetown at the end but he certainly would have been an easy 2nd. NO CHAMPAGNE FOR US!

Katy’s Office Girl is entered in the 5th race on Saturday at 1 1/16 miles on the inner turf against the boys with Ramon up. Hope he makes up for today. It’s a $20K claimer. She’ll be in post 2, which is generally not favorable but since she drops way back anyway, it should not be as big an impediment.

Hear the Footsteps is entered in the 11th race on Saturday at a mile on the turf with Cornelio Velasquez up in the irons. He has the #1 post which is a distinct disadvantage at Saratoga.

We’ve had three races at Saratoga so far and finished first, second and third. It’s hard to complain about that. Even the ONY partnership had one win out of two runners.

We’ve got lots of company and there’s lots to do, so nighty night to all!

A.