The best bit of news from the grapevine this morning: Blind Luck works six furlongs in 1:11 4/5 in preparation for a four-year-old debut in the GII El Encino Stakes on January 16th. Yes, we had already heard that she wasn’t retiring in the wake of what is almost certainly a championship season, but boy is it nice to have it confirmed. I will never get enough of the little iron filly. May she crush her El Encino rivals in to the brand new dirt.

Speaking of, it seems awfully fitting that my first actual racing post on here should state once and for all that I am firmly on the side of natural dirt tracks. I think synthetic tracks are silly for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it treats a symptom and not the problem. The problem, of course, is more fragile racehorses. Synthetic surfaces, if they are safer as they claim to be, would actually serve to compound the crisis by allowing brittle-boned animals to go undetected through their careers and breed, thereby weakening the entire allelic population and by not allowing any young horse to reach the potential for strength and durability that can only be achieved by concussive force applied to bone and tissue. Which is also the reason that I think synthetic surfaces in training centers is stupid.

But I digress.

The year is now 2011, which means that the Kentucky Derby chase is officially underway, and that makes Jasmine make the 8D face. And as anyone who has followed me over from deviantART will know, the word for this crop in general is badass. Uncle Mo and To Honor and Serve are the obvious big boys, with horses like Boys at Toscanova, Jaycito, JP’s Gusto and Comma to the Top sharing buzz and street cred as well. Then there are the maiden and allowance winners and stakes-placed two-year-olds looking to break in: Brethren and The Factor were each so impressive last out that their bandwagons are almost as full as the top-rated two.

The badass factor is most obvious in a select few, Uncle Mo being the most obvious. His Champagne Stakes was run as quickly as Seattle Slew’s, and his Breeders’ Cup Juvenile nothing short of devastating. 1:50 might not seem like an exciting nine-furlong time, but To Honor and Serve’s Remsen was three seconds faster than the equivalent filly stakes earlier in the card. Brethren, by Distorted Humor out of an A.P. Indy Mare (both stallions known for late-blooming classic horses) ran 1:08 4/5 for six furlongs in his debut. The Factor? Yes, the Santa Anita track was wicked fast on its first day of service, but 1:06.98 for a two-year-old is just silly. Naturally, the boo birds have already come out calling him “nothing but a sprinter,” but to them I say what loser cares? If he turns out to be nothing but a sprinter, I will still freak out every time he runs.

Of the lesser-known badasses, my favourite is Rogue Romance. I fell in love with him watching his last-to-first tour de force in the GIII Bourbon Stakes on turf at Keeneland in October, and then his third-place finish to titans Uncle Mo and Boys at Toscanova in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in his first attempt on dirt sealed the deal. If he runs on dirt in his three-year-old debut, which I assume he will, you know his connections are thinking Derby. And I don’t blame them. His daddy did win it, after all. He’s my slightly dark horse early in the season. As of right now, my not-dark-at-all horse is To Honor and Serve, with Brethren close behind. Uncle Mo is a freak of nature who probably has more talent than both of those other horses put together, but they have the pedigree advantage as far as distance, and I want to see Uncle Mo trained and raced to win a Kentucky Derby before I hand him the race on a silver platter.

And it’s probably a good thing that the racing public hasn’t found me yet on that last sentence, because I can just hear the capslock DO NOT BLASPHEME TODD PLETCHER WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE already… Oh, hypothetical troll, how you are in for a ride with me. But that is definitely a topic for another day.