[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign the following program is brought to.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: You in living color on Dell gazette.com or wherever you get your podcast.
The Daily Gazette Company presents the parting Shots Podcast.
Now here's your host, Daily Gazette sports editor Ken Shots. Thank you, Scott Kesey, and welcome to the Parting Shots Podcast, available wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe today. Thanks for joining me from the Parting Shots Podcast Studio in Schenectady, New York. It's our last podcast for the month of July and we have a horse racing talk dominating this podcast as Mike McAdam, our gazette horse racing rider with the at the Track with Max segment. We'll look back at last Saturday's Jim Dandy Stakes and look ahead to this Saturday's Whitney Stakes. That's big event coming up on Saturday at Saratoga Racecourse and Mike and I talked on Tuesday. So we have Mike will have all the information you need to to get you ready for Saturday's Whitney Stakes and of course, looking back at the Jim Dandy. So that's going to be a lot of fun to talk about. So that'll be coming up in just a moment here on the Parting Shots podcast. As we head into break, we remember jazz musician Chuck Mangione, who is a Rochester native who died July 22 at the age of 84.
He broke into the music scene in 1978 with his hit Feel so Good and he had a recurring role on the animated TV series King of the Hill. So as we go into the break, here's Chuck Mangione with It Feels so Good. Rest in peace, Chuck.
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Please show your fellow humans some respect. They'll appreciate your empathy.
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[00:03:10] Speaker B: Hi, this is Union College athletic director Jim McGlock. You're listening to the Parting Shots podcast with Daily Gazette sports editor Ken Shot.
[00:03:18] Speaker F: Welcome back to the podcast. And it's our weekly segment with Gazette horse racing rider Mike McAdam is at the track with Mack segment and Mac, guess what, it's Whitney week. About that it's amazing.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: The entries came out on Sunday. They're very good about getting the stuff out quickly. They have like a 72 hour draw window. So fortunately we were able to get our hands on the Whitney field very early and start sorting through it.
Not just the race itself, but the entire card is really good. So yeah. So really looking forward to it. This is one of the biggest races during the Saratoga meet and to go with the Travers and the Alabama. So this is a big one.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:04:06] Speaker F: Well, besides Whitney week, it's also the Racing hall of Fame week. But before we get into those topics, let's look back at last Saturday's Jim Dandy where Sovereignty put his brilliance on display and reinforced his standing at the top of the three year old division and maybe the top third red overall in the country. Your thoughts, Mac?
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Yeah. According to the NTRA National Thoroughbred Racing association poll, which I vote on every week that came out yesterday, he is the best horse in the country right now based on being at the top of the rankings. Moving ahead of Mind Frame, who we'll talk about a little bit later.
For the first time, Sovereignty, it was only a five horse field in the gym. Dandy, Sovereignty was a huge favorite. You know, the really the only scary horse in there was Baeza, the California horse.
And a little shout out to Baeza. He was born in the wrong year because he in the the big race is restricted to three year olds. He's, he's lost, finished second in Journalism in the Santa Anita Handicap Derby, finished third behind Sovereignty and Journalism in the Kentucky Derby, came back strong for the Belmont Stakes and finished again third behind Sovereignty and Journalism. And then he ran a great race like just ran his eyeballs out in the Jim Dandy only to finish second again to Sovereignty by a length. Who was just an absolute next level as trainer Jeremiah Engelhardt, who had Moplex in there. He said Sovereignty is just breathing different air from everybody else right now.
So again by Aza, this poor horse was I shouldn't say poor horse, but he was born in the wrong year where Sovereignty and Journalism are in the same division and running in the same big races as him. But that's more a credit to Sovereignty than anything else. This horse under Junior Alvarado, trained by Bill Mott, got in the gym, Danny had a little bit more closer forward position than he usually does. It was only a five horse field, and Junior Alvarado did a great job of just kind of getting him out outside.
You'd be amazed how many times stupid things can happen with small fields like this where a jockey can screw up and figure out a way to get into traffic trouble, despite the fact that there's not that much traffic out there. But Junior Alvarado did a great job getting him to the outside.
Made his move in the middle of the turn.
He kind of pushed buttons at all the right times and the final margin of a length doesn't look like a lot or very commanding or anything, but just the way he rode him and just was in total control the whole way. Didn't do more than he needed to. Which bodes well for the Travers for Sovereignty because he didn't get used up. He didn't get, you know, just battle. You know, he didn't face this really fierce battle in the Jim Dandy. So they kind of saved something for the Travers. So really just an amazing animal right now. It's great to be around him. He's been in Saratoga since after the Derby.
It's just great to see him on a daily basis. I will say about the NTRA poll, it's kind of an informal thing. It's not like, you know, some big official like the AP top 25 or anything. It's just sort of like 30 people, including me, that just kind of fill it out every week of who, who we think the top horses are in the country. I will say it's kind of interesting that last week when Mind Frame was still number one and sovereignty was two, sovereignty actually had more first place votes 13 to 10 than mind frame did. And then this week, it was a slam dunk.
Sovereignty had 17 first place votes, including mine and mind frame had nine. So, you know, the big flip flop. Part of my reasoning on my vote was the fact that. And we. Again, we'll talk about this later. As great of a season as Mind Frame is having, we're not expecting him to run in the Whitney, but we'll talk about that a little bit later. So for now, Sovereignty kicking some serious button, deservedly at the top of the NTRA poll.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Yeah, you brought up about the small field and I'm just curious, I mean, does the jockeys have my mindset to change because it's a smaller feeling. They got it. Does he have to be more careful with the horses as opposed to maybe not necessarily.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: It's just a matter of, you know, it depends on how the horse likes to run is a big part of it. It depends on how the field has shaped up. If there's, like, two speed horses that are probably gonna duel early on, then you can kind of sit back and just watch what they do and time your move.
Everything Junior Alvarado did, he timed perfectly. Like, when he pushed certain buttons at certain times, whether that was to get outside and not get boxed in. Because what happens is when you're a big favorite in these races, you know, even with small fields, a lot of times the other jockeys kind of try to ride your horse.
Like, instead of trying to ride a winning ride, they're. They're looking at your horse to see, you know, what can I do to keep him from winning? And a lot of times, most of the time, it's not a winning strategy for those jockeys. But if you're the jockey on the huge favorite, you have to be cognizant of that, that other jockeys are going to try to ride your horse. And by that, I mean ride their horse in a means of preventing your horse from winning. So you have to kind of keep an eyeball on that. But in this case, everything just went picture perfect. He could have won by five lengths, but he didn't need to and didn't want to. And Junior was just so confident in how the whole thing set up for him, and he just. He just rode him like he was the winning horse all the way.
Like I said, kept him a little closer to the front because they did not go very fast on the front. So he didn't want to, like, try to be making up too much ground. You have to have, like, an internal clock when you're a jockey to realize that, hey, that front runner is going kind of slow. I better be a couple lengths, maybe closer than I had planned ahead of time. So there's a lot of little things going on like that in a jockey's head, but certainly in a small field, he has to realize that the other jockeys are trying to beat him and may use tactics accordingly that, you know, you got to kind of keep an eye out for.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Well, we mentioned National Museum of Racing and hall of Fame will hold its annual induction ceremony on Friday, and the event will have a prominent Philadelphia theme to it. Hopefully, it'll play Elton John's Elton Phillip, your Freedom.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: I don't know about that, but they'll play the the Call of the Kentucky Derby and the freakness, probably from 2004.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah, because that's because the small. The. The only inductee in the contemporary category is Smarty Jones, the Pennsylvania bred who just missed winning the triple crown in 2004. That doesn't seem like was seen like yesterday though. But yeah, he finished second to Burst onto the Belmont. Your thoughts on Smarty Jones?
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Really cool. Interesting horse. I will admit I did not vote for him and this was the first year that he was on the ballot. I think there was kind of a movement behind the scenes to get him as a finalist. And I didn't vote for him because his career, like the Belmont, was his last race of his career. He only ran nine times. He won eight of them, I think it was.
So he had a phenomenal three year old season.
But I was talking to Nick Zito and, and Gazette readers will see this online later and they'll see it in Wednesday's paper. Nick had a ton of great memories and stories regarding Birdstone, who he trained, and Smarty Jones.
And one point I, one question I had for Nick was, what do you think about Smarty Jones going in the hall of Fame? He said he totally deserves it because he became a national hero that year.
People love that horse. He won the Derby. He won the Preakness both times impressively and was a huge favorite to win the first Triple Crown since affirmed in 1978. People are salivating for a Triple Crown and this horse is really, really good and had a great chance to do it. And Nick said he deserves to be in the hall of Fame because he became a national hero. Everybody in the country knew him, I can tell you.
I don't know if it was that year or the following year. I went to a sushi restaurant in Saratoga Springs and one of the specialty items on the menu was the Smarty Jones roll. And yeah, I bought it, I got it.
So, I mean, Nick makes a good point.
It's a Hall of Fame, it's not a Hall of, you know what your record or resume is.
So based on that, like I said, he made a good point about Marty Jones going into the hall of Fame, the Belmont Stakes that year that Birdstone won.
And Nick brought this up, you know, the fact that the Mary Lou Whitney bred Birdstone and she always bred horses to go long distance. And of course they went a mile and a half there.
Nick made the point that Stuart Elliott, who was the jockey on Smarty Jones, took a lot of heat after they lost the Belmont because people are claiming he moved too soon. But as Nick points out, they had a four length lead in the stretch and Birdstone just kind of grinded down and got there at the wire in a mile and a half race. And as Nick said, you ask any trainer in the country, I don't care if it's a cheap claiming race or the Kentucky Derby, if you knew you were going to have a four length lead at the top of the stretch in that race, everybody in the planet would sign up for that. So, I mean, no excuses for Smarty Jones. It was just a matter of Birdstone was better equipped to, you know, finish a race at a mile and a half. If you listen to the replay from Tom Durkin, the track announcer, it's great. It's a great call, of course, but everybody's anticipating a Triple Crown win by this really good horse at the wire. As you can see, it's apparent that Birdstone's gonna go buy him in the last couple strides or whatever. Tom Durkin just says, and Berkstone has won the Belmont Stakes. And there's like this like hint of dejection in his voice that you could kind of reflected all the people, you know, who are disappointed that they didn't get to see a Triple Crown. And Nick brought another good point up. He said, the only reason I got a pass for that, because people were calling us the villains and stuff, was I'm a New Yorker and Mary Lou's New York and everybody loves her. You know, if it had been a California horse that did that, you know, the owner and trainer would have had a hard time getting off the Belmont park grounds, you know, with their, their life intact. But since it was Nick Zito, like, he finished second in the Belmont like five or six times before that. So it was the first one he won. So there's a lot to like about Birdstone winning it, but at the same time, a lot of people were mad that and kind of saw them as the villain because they knew they were desperately wanted. A Triple Crown.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
Whitney Stakes, who we mentioned at the top of this segment, has drawn a blockbuster field of 10, led by the 9 to 5 morning line favorite, Fierceness. So what can we expect out of the Whitney?
[00:15:25] Speaker A: Well, the first thing you can expect is one of the two Todd Pletcher horses, Mind Frame or Fierceness will scratch unless Fierceness comes down with a sniffle by the end of the week, Mind Frame will scratch.
Horse is three for three this year. He's five to two, but he's pointing toward the Jockey Club Gold Cup. The issue here is that you have common ownership where Mike Rapole owns half of Mind Frame and he owns all of Fierceness and he And Todd Pletcher, the trainer, they don't want to run these two horses against each other until they have to, which is the Breeders Cup Classic in November. So until then they want to keep them separated and keep building their resumes.
You know, they don't want to finish first and second in the Whitney with Mind Frame and Fierceness. No matter what the order of finish is, they want each of them to just keep winning. So which means they have to not run against each other. So Mind Frame is, is not meant for the Whitney, but he's in there in case something happens. If Fierceness gets a sniffle or a hiccup by the end of the week and they feel like they're not going to run them, you don't want to sit there with nothing entered, especially when you got this great horse, Mind Frame sitting in your barn, like just raring to go. So he's entered, but you know, unless something happens of Fierceness, he will scratch out. That still leaves us with a nine horse field that is very good.
Led by Fierceness, last year's Travers winner.
He's coming off a second place to Raging Torrent, who subsequently was retired with an injury in the Met mile.
So Fierceness is the legit 9 to 5 favorite.
He'll go up against Sierra Leone from Chad Brown's barn. And the interesting thing with Sierra Leone, who won the Breeders Cup Classic over Fierceness in November, Sierra Leone is one of these horses that needs like the perfect setup. He's a come from behind horse. He shows up every time, runs his eyeballs out, but he needs like the perfect like fast paced scenario up front. And because of that, Chad Brown has also entered a horse named contrary thinking, 50 to 1 bomb, who's coming off an allowance win. But he did it in front running fashion. So he's jumping from an allowance into the grade one one million dollar Whitney with a clear purpose of being ensuring that there's going to be a fast pace up front to set up Sierra Leone.
Meanwhile, we brought this up with, with Todd Pletcher on Sunday or Saturday, whatever it was Saturday after Mind Frame and Fierceness both work. And he said that's fine with us. That helps us too if you know if they want to put a rabbit in there because Fierceness likes to have a target to run at too. So he kind of shrugged that off. But there's clearly some kind of interesting tactics going in there where they're putting this 50 to one bomb, kind of throwing him to the wolves with the purpose of, you know, setting it up For Sierra Leone, you know, in the late stages of the race, you know, you got White, a barrio in there who won the Whitney two years ago.
A lot of interesting forces. You know, it's a tough handicapping challenge.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to put fierceness on top.
But that remains to be seen in Saturday's paper. So pick up Saturday's Gazette for my, you know, my wisdom and insight on.
I will say the undercard is I don't envy our Gazette handicappers with the rest of the card because the other races like specifically the Test, which is grade one Sprint for three year old Phillies and the four star Dave at a mile on the turf, Grade one. These are very difficult handicapping, you know, deep fields and, and good horses in there. So there's some tough stuff going on. I will also note that there are a ton of like really good baby races early in the card for 2 year olds including the Saratoga Special which has probably the, you know, the likely biggest favorite on the card, which is Obliteration who won the Sanford by nine lengths or whatever it was during the Fourth of July festival. He's, he's the best two year old cult in the country. That's Obliteration trained by Steve Asmussen and he's, he's 7 and 5 in the Saratoga Special. So there. But there's a bunch of other good maiden special weight races with two year olds in them, including one horse that another ass must and 2 year old that they bought at a sale in Florida in April for $1.4 million. So it's kind of some cool, a lot of cool stuff going on besides the Whitney. But the Whitney looks really good too. So we're very privileged to have this card set up for us on Saturday.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's probably what I would say maybe the second busiest day of the week obviously with the Travers is number one.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah, last year I think Travers was 48,000 so they capped the paid admission at 50,000. I think they had 48 for the Travers and 46 for the Whitney. Last year they just had 36 plus for Jim Dandy Day which was really good.
So I would think they'd be pushing it if they don't get like 45 or something like that or at least 40 on Saturday. That, you know, Naira is going to be a little disappointed. I haven't checked the weather lately but you know, it's only Tuesday so as, as we're recording this.
But yeah, it's all, it's always consistently the second biggest turnout of the meet after the Travers. And it's like a slam dunk that, you know, we're gonna, we, we ought to see at least 40 plus on Saturday.
[00:20:55] Speaker F: Is there anything that's caught your eye in the first few weeks here? The meet?
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Sovereignty, I hate to keep, you know, harping on that, and I made this point when we first were looking at him, you know, leading into the Belmont.
So he, he's a bay colt, which means he's got brown fur for the most part, and a black mane and a black tail.
But his pattern on his nose looks like you've probably seen people driving their cars around with the Lake George or the Sacandaga Lake. You know, the white stickers on the back of their. Their rear window, his Blaze, as they call it, which is the white stripe on the nose, looks like one of those lake. You know, those thin Lake, Georgia white stickers that you see on people's cars. So that we're thankful for that, because when Erica Miller, our wonderful photographer, and I are out there in the mornings trying to figure out who's who, which can be a very difficult challenge.
Sovereignty is pretty easy to spot because I just remember, okay, he's the one with Lake George on his nose.
So Sovereignty, by far, you know, the horse is just amazing. We're really witnessing some pretty cool history here. And, you know, he'll be the favorite in the Travers, and then we'll see what happens in the Breeders Cup Classic. That's the other thing I noticed in the Whitney is good evidence of this, and I mentioned this to Pletcher the other day.
Last year, the old, older male dirt division, which is, you know, like Whitney horses and Jockey Club Gold cup type horses, that division was really not good at all. There was nobody.
Nobody wanted it. I mean, National Treasure won the Eclipse Award in that division. He only won two races, and he didn't win one after June, which is pretty sad. But the three year olds were great last year, and we're very fortunate that a lot of those good three year olds, including Fierceness, Mind Frame, Sierra Leone, their connections decided to run them back at 4 instead of retiring them to stud. So that's reflected in the Whitney field to a large degree.
So the older male dirt division is just like. In contrast to last year, is a really, really interesting. It's going to be right down to the Breeders cup to see who wins that Eclipse Award this year, which would be a lot of fun to watch.
[00:23:09] Speaker F: Do we have any update on journalism and the Travers?
[00:23:12] Speaker A: Yeah, not really. And I don't Expect one for, you know, until maybe even the last minute. I'm kind of thinking, leaning toward we're not going to see him in the Traverse. That's a great question and it gets asked a lot.
I'm thinking I'll believe it when I see it that he's in Travers. And the only reason is because he has another option, which is the Pacific Classic.
I think it's the week after the Travers, maybe where he can stay home. I mean, that horse has been coast to coast a few times now coming from California.
This way, not only does he stay in California to run, he'll have to run against older horses, but he's good enough to do that.
But the advantage to staying there and just running in that race instead of coming out for the Travers is the Breeders cup is at Del Mar this year, which is where the San, where the Pacific Classic is held. So you get a, you get a big race over the track where the Breeders cup will be held. You don't have to fly cross country again. I think there's more boxes being checked in favor of him staying in California than coming out for the Traverse. The one box to really check us to take another crack at sovereignty. But the way that horse is running, maybe you don't want to run against him again until the Breeders Cup. So they haven't said anything official and they're pretty reserved and you know, pulling the trigger on telling people where, when and where they're going to run.
So we don't know for sure. But I'm leaning toward thinking he'll it's more beneficial for the horse to stay there and run in that race as opposed to come out here for the Travers.
[00:24:48] Speaker F: Well, sounds good, Mac. I appreciate a few minutes. Of course you can follow max coverage online on @x or formerly Twitter @Mike_mcadam. Of course. The Nick Zito story will be
[email protected] and Wednesday's print editions will pick up a copy of that. Mike, appreciate a few minutes and we'll talk soon.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I recommend reading the Zito story. He's got a ton of store stories about those two horses and he gave me a lot of good stuff. It should be a fun read, read for people. But thanks for having me on, Ken. I'll talk to you next week.
[00:25:17] Speaker F: Sounds good. It says Mike, we got him. We'll be back to wrap up the podcast and our latest winner in the Daily Gazettes auto racing contest in just a moment.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: What are you doing out there? Come on.
[00:25:38] Speaker G: I saw you at the game the other night. Yeah, you up there getting mad, acting like we're all out there making a million a game. But let me be real with you. This isn't the pros. It's school sports. And it's a game. Our game.
So please let us play school sports.
[00:25:56] Speaker D: Fans, remember, when you cheer for your team, make noise for the right reasons. This message presented by the NFHS and the NIAAA and all student athletes in New York.
[00:26:06] Speaker H: Hi, I'm Stan.
[00:26:08] Speaker I: And I'm Shen.
[00:26:09] Speaker H: And each week we bring you the Stan and Shen Show.
And each week we talk about fun things through our travels throughout the Capital region. We touch on food, we touch on news, try to touch heavily on good news. And Shen's always available with hot takes.
[00:26:26] Speaker I: Yeah. So if you could follow along and listen to us every week on DailyGazette.com or on all major streaming platforms, we'd love to have you join us Explore the benefits of subscribing to the Daily Gazette like our convenient E Edition app, personalized newsletters and unique reader rewards. When you join, start your membership today. Offers redeemable at www.dailygazette.com hi, this is.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Greg Floyd, Emmy award winning they made me say that news anchor at CBS 6 in Schenectady. You're listening to the Parting Shots podcast with my friend Daily Gazette sports editor Ken Schott.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: Back to wrap up the podcast. And before I mention the latest winner in the Daily Gazette's auto racing contest, you hear Mike McGann say we'll talk next week. Actually we won't. I'm taking next week off. Going to get out of town for a little bit and help stuff with my mom down in Philadelphia. So I'm going to enjoy some time off.
[00:27:23] Speaker F: We'll be back in a couple weeks.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: With Mike McAdam as well as other guest for the podcast.
The Week 23 winner in the Daily Gazettes auto racing contest was Kathleen Bellinger of Johnstown. With 45 points. Kathleen wins a $50 gift card. Congratulations Kathleen. The VIP winner was Scott Lucher of CapitaLand GMC with 30 points.
I'll announce the auto racing contest winner's name and that winner's name will appear in Saturday's Daily Gazette. To play, go to dailygazette.com and click on the auto Racing contest banner.
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That wraps up another edition of the Parting Shots Podcast. I want to thank Mike Bugadam for coming on the show.
[00:28:41] Speaker F: If you have questions or comments about.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: The podcast, email to me at shot. That's s c h o t
[email protected] follow me on X threads and bluesky Lapshots.
The views expressed on the Pawning Shots podcast are not necessarily those of the Daily Gazette Company. The Parting Shots podcast is a production of the Daily Gazette company I'm Daily Gazette Sports Editor Ken Schott. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time from the Parting Shots Podcast studio in stock. Connecting New York Good day, good sports. I support Stephen Colbert and I'll be back in two weeks.
