Just a quick post -Denny Velazquez had Miz Owell in a good spot throughout but she didn’t fire in the lane and we had to settle for fourth.
We have our eyes on a few this weekend, so hopefully she’ll have a stablemate since no one claimed her!
We’ll see how she come back the next few days and figure out her next spot.
Canterbury Racing Club 
Tight Race…..Ok Tactical Girl was claimed, who was the other horse? We thought it was Miz Owell…………..
The top two finishers were claimed.
I thought we would have dropped a claim on Biltmore Boogie for $4,000 in Race9. Johnny Love had him listed as Friday’s best bet and the horse didn’t disappoint.
Claiming at the bottom level is problematical. At that level they can be either sore or of limited talent. Additionally, these aren’t “open” $4000 claimers but claimers that haven’t won a couple of times this year so there is no place to go but tougher and there is no place to drop the horse because we’re already at the bottom, making it difficult to move on, which we have to do at some point before the end of the year.
Diodoro gets most of his horses from Canterbury claimed away in the first couple of weeks at Turf Paradise for less than they run for here. They usually don’t win after they are claimed. Take today for example. Race 5 had two former Diodoro trained horses stepping up in class but the one still trained by him won. Was there any thought in claiming Gavar on Saturday? Two wins and two seconds in the last four races and Saturday he was back at the level he was claimed by Villafranco. He is a very good trainer. It would be interesting to see what Gavar does on the turf now that he seems to have figured out how to race, being a Ghostzapper out of a Dynaformer mare. Seems he has upside to him.
We did look but passed. Generally speaking a horse that breaks it’s maiden in a claiming race is usually worth less than that claiming price. It’s rare that you move up higher against winners. Gavar’s eventual success could be the result of moving from a 5% trainer to a 21% trainer. He does hit the board relatively consistently for Villafranco but dropped past the $16K level to $12.5 and still didn’t win. It’s possible he may be useful or Villafranco was dropping him for a reason. It’ll be interesting to see what level he ends up at next – keep in mind he ran on the dirt as part of the Battle of the Surfaces race.
Gavar may be tired. Saturday was his fifth race in 2 months, 11th of the year. The best horse in the race doesn’t always win. If they did the favorites would win more than 33%. He did beat Vilify who Mr. Brinson claimed but was taken down. He won against $20,000 NW2L here in a race off the turf and was second at Prairie Meadows in a $30,000-25,000 NW3L on the dirt. But since nobody else claimed him that would suggest I am wrong. Never looked at owning a horse before. Just wanted to hear the club’s take on it. Thanks for the reply.
You betcha. The thing to remember about claiming from guys like Diodoro, Villafranco, Robertson, etc. is that they are really good horsemen. It’s hard to improve off of their work. No disrespect to Clay at all – he’d be the first to tell you the same thing. Usually if you claim from them you’re hoping to maintain form knowing that they are as good as you are. It could very well be that folks passed on him for that reason or the theory you mentioned as well – that’s a lot of racing and generally you don’t want to claim a horse you have to turn out for 60-days.