Congratulations on your second victory of the meet! High Spirit did what he was supposed to do last night and dispatched of his competition with relative ease as the wagering favorite!

Adolfo Morales gave him a very good ride keeping him tucked inside early in the race before angling him off the rail and swinging him wide for the drive where he was able to cruise home for the victory. Click here to see the full chart. Replay below:

Additionally, he was claimed for $3,500 by trainer Clinton Venner for new owner Jill Houston. In all, not a bad way to have that one wind down as we get the plus part of the purse ($5,400) plus the claim price of $3,500.

Congratulations on the victory! We’ll be working another deal with the photographer so that you can all have a picture of the win. More information to come on that later today or tomorrow.

Next, Great Bam’s race did fill for Monday. It will be run as the second of eleven races on closing day. Post time should be approximately 2 p.m. Make plans to attend closing day and watch Great Bam! It’s the M-Z group’s turn in the paddock. Please be sure to line up outside the paddock shortly after the first race to go in as a group.

He looks to be competitive in this spot. Obviously, we’ll need a little racing luck with a full field and we’ll have to hope that he’s at a pretty high fitness level. In any case, it will be good to see him running.

Lastly, Lovely Tak has been sold for $1,500 to a member of the racing club that intends to breed her next year. This is a good solution as she’ll be going to a good home… the same home as Crown the Cat! The group will collect the $1,500 and it will be placed in the account. Lovely Tak will likely ship out early next week.

We looked for a race for her, but it was clear this morning that there weren’t going to be enough in the race to make it go. Thus, we wish her well in her new career as a mom!

Sorry for the delayed post. A fourth and a third place finish over the past weekend weren’t exactly what we had hoped for. Lovely Tak simply got too far back and had too much ground to make up. High Spirit suffered a very tough trip and was obviously much better than his third place finish. He was capable of finishing second for certain and possibly winning. However, it is part of the game.

The plan is to try to run both of these back once more during the meet. Lovely Tak was entered today in a $3,500 non-winners of two races in the year and it drew three entries. It’s coming back tomorrow for $5,000 and may draw more interest. We will keep you posted.

High Spirit is likely being pointed to a race on closing day. There is a one mile and three eighth turf race in the condition book on Monday, September 3rd. Clay hopes to run him back in that spot to get him additional ground and give him a little more rest.

Great Bam is headed to the track tomorrow – weather permitting – to truly test his fitness level. Clay told us that this work will determine when he will be able to run. The works as of late have been slower by design to get him back into the swing of things and this one will be meant to seriously test his fitness level.

As the meet winds down, we’ll need to start to discuss how to disburse, or at least reduce, the stable. Depending on how Great Bam and High Spirit respond in the next couple of days, they are the most likely to be competitive in Chicago. Lovely Tak is probably not quite at the level required to compete at Hawthorne; thus, she’s the most likely to be sold first.

She has been running at the bottom level, $3,500 claiming, and the new owner will need to ship her somewhere (most likely Turf Paradise) where she can be competitive. Thus, we’ll have to expect to get significantly less than $3,500 for her. Hopefully, we can sell her to a trainer heading to Turf Paradise for somewhere between $1,500 and $2,000.

We’ll also need to decide what to do with the other runners in the coming weeks. We will talk with Clay, find out more about his plans for the fall regarding when he wants to ship, etc and will come back and provide more information for the group.