Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem Dec. 9, 2024

A good Monday morning to you all! Hope everyone had a good weekend, I found this past weekend of racing quite enjoyable to watch. At Tampa, we saw another big performance from Donut God as well as a promising second-place finish from Flightline’s baby half-sister Flight of Fancy. And the weather continued to be very nice for this part of the year down here in Florida. 

I wanted to focus much of today’s column on Saturday’s races, in particular the Demoiselle (G2) and the Remsen (G2) at Aqueduct. They serve such a unique role because of their added distance. Sure, it’s only an extra sixteenth of a mile from the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) and many of the good end-of -season two year-old races, but it does make them unique. 

My yoga teacher always says “You can do hard things.” She usually says that as we’re in the final few seconds of a particularly challenging posture or exercise. I always love when she says it because it’s such a good reminder of what we can do. 

I thought about this phrase as I was watching back the replays for the Demoiselle and the Remsen. Horses can do hard things. They can run longer distances. I mean nine furlongs isn’t exactly a marathon, but I’d love to see the number of nine-furlong races we run now compared to 20 or 30 years ago. I remember watching an old Longacres replay show that someone had bootlegged and there was a 1 3/16-mile race and a 1 1/4-mile race on a random Sunday card. Not stakes, just claimers, but at challenging distances. 

So much of what makes the Kentucky Derby (G1) such a fun puzzle to handicap is the question of distance – 1 1/4 miles – and none of them have seen that distance in a race yet. The Belmont (G1) is even more so, as the traditional 1 1/2-mile distance is such a unique test for these horses. 

Why then do racing secretaries and tracks continue to pump out cards that are almost always full of six-furlong dirt sprints and mile or 1 1/16-mile route races? There’s such little card diversity at so many tracks. 

Now I’m sure a big part of this is because the trainers indicate they don’t want to run the longer distances. I used to work in the race office at River Downs, and so many trainers would call in and ask if we would take a short end of a race, meaning that in the book it was six furlongs but maybe we’d make the race go at 5 1/2. Is that because of breeding and the tendency towards breeding for speed?  

As a racecaller, I love when we get to have races that are a bit unique. Anytime we have a turf race stretch out to nine furlongs in the chute at Tampa, it makes the race just a little different. But on dirt, I don’t think I’ve called any races beyond 1 1/16 miles, except for many an off-the-turf mile 1 1/8-mile race. 

Horses and people can do hard things. I really wish we would get a little more card diversity instead of just the steady diets of the same things. And it doesn’t have to be all just longer, longer, longer; throw in the occasional 4 1/2-furlong dash. Just mix things up a little bit. 

Have a great week everyone!