Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem Dec. 23, 2024

A good Monday morning to you all! Hope everyone has a good holiday week coming up. We’re running on Tuesday this week at Tampa Bay Downs, and as someone who doesn’t have any family in the area, I kind of like running on the holiday as it beats sitting around my house all day. So hopefully some horseplayers will join us for a random Tuesday card here in Florida. 

With no New York this week I was kind of expecting things to be a little quieter on the racing front. But big days in New Orleans and South Florida had it feeling like kind of a big Saturday. I feel like over the next few months every other weekend will feature a big day from either Fair Grounds or Gulfstream, and this past Saturday was kind of the start of that. It does still seem like a lot of the big names from Breeders’ Cup weekend are still on rest and awaiting the bigger races a month or two down the line. Personally, I’ve always been much more concerned about interesting races than seeing “stars” though. 

For me, my favorite race of the weekend was the Fort Lauderdale (G2) on turf at Gulfstream Park. It now serves as a prep for the Pegasus World Cup Turf (G1) and I thought it had some solid performances up top and some troubled trips worth noting for down the road. Since his win in the 2023 Penn Mile (G2), Major Dude has popped up with some wins but nothing too serious. His effort Saturday in the Fort Lauderdale signaled to me maybe a bit of a move forward and upward. He had to wait a little while for daylight and when he did he accelerated nicely and was able to hold off Fort Washington. Fort Washington was coming from further behind than Major Dude was, but he also had an unfettered stretch run whereas Major Dude had to wait a while for room and was basically in between horses at almost all points of the last half of the race. I thought he showed some real gumption and determination in this race. 

The "trip" horse of the race might have been Cash Equity. He looked like he was poised to make a nice run down the stretch, but as happens in fall-apart turf races, some of the holes and paths just evaporated before he could get going. When you have early pacesetters dropping back and stalkers and closers all kicking in, space can go away quickly, and I think Cash Equity was a victim of that on Saturday. 

Fair Grounds saw a couple of first-time starters make big impressions in stakes races on Saturday. I feel like earlier in the calendar year I’m not too opposed to the idea of firsters winning two year-old stakes. However, this time of year I think I’m kind of biased towards horses with experience and often with wins. But after seeing Doroteo run so well to finish second in the Sugar Bowl S. and Simply Joking score a hard-fought closing win in the Letellier Memorial, maybe I need to be more open minded about these type of runners. When good barns think enough of their horses to enter in these spots, I suppose you should pay attention. Because it’s not as if there aren’t a ton of maiden special weight options for two year-olds this time of year for almost any distance and any surface. 

Hope everyone has a good holiday this week. We’ll catch up with some looks back on the year this week and next and start our look ahead to 2025.