Dirty Dozen and Optimism

Tweet As we head to the latter portion of the week a couple of news and notes that have been part of my racing world over the past few days.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to be part of Wireplayers.com's Derby Dozen. I join fellow TBA'ers The Turk , Amateurcapper and Zipseatthetrack, as well as seven other handicappers/bloggers/tweeters from around the racing interwebs. Kudos to Steve Munday from wireplayers.com for pulling this together. I've put a link on the left sidebar to the first volume of the poll which also includes comments (he used two of mine...haha) from each of the respective voters. More on my dozen later in the week. It goes to show with a little work and cooperation anything can be pulled together, I view this similar to The Knight Sky Racing Blog's pet polling project I've been hyping (see poll on right sidebar), that picked up a few more blog sites over the past week (thanks to those who agreed to participate - you know who you are!).

I received an interesting email yesterday related to a post way back in this blog's infancy in April 2008 on the sire Incurable Optimist. Since I only had about 5 readers back in April 08, let me refresh you on this horse that currently stands in Argentina. At the time in 2008, he was the leading money winning sire in Argentina. He was bred by Dr. William Wilmot and Dr. Joan Taylor of NY and won four of six starts in 1998, most notably the 1st Generous Stakes (G3) and the Pilgrim Stakes (G3) on closing day at Belmont in 1998. His sire, Cure the Blues won six of ten starts and placed 15th in the 1981 Kentucky Derby won by Pleasant Colony. Cure the Blues won the Laurel Futurity and Marlboro Nursery Stakes and took a second in the Gotham and a third in the Wood in his Derby prep races. He finished as the top sire in Argentina in 2008 with 66 winners in 152 starters (and 102 hitting the board). He had a decent 2009, finishing 8th on the list with 62 winners in 168 starters (and 93 hitting the board).

The sire's owner communicated the following to me (which was a pleasant surprise):

"I happened to see your article in mid 2008 regarding Incurable Optimist and his success in Argentina. I raced and continue to own Incurable Optimist and can report to you that he finished 2008 as the leading sire in Argentina. He won the Pelligrini Award (Their equivalent of our Eclipse) as outstanding sire. His sons also captured Horse of the Year, Outstanding Older Male, and Outstanding Miler. He stands at El Paraiso near Capitan Sarmiento about 3 hours from Buenos Aires. If you ever find yourself in Argentina let me know and I will arrange for a visit. He appreciates that some continue to follow his career from afar."

Emails like that are what makes putting the effort into this blog, all the more worthwhile.