Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem July 22, 2024

A good Monday morning to you all! That felt like one of the more wild Saturdays we’ve had in a while – at least as a viewer in the sense that several tracks had big days. 

For the Kentucky Derby (G1), Preakness (G1), Belmont (G1), I’m usually just tuned into the big track hosting those events on that day. On Saturday it was trying to navigate the Haskell (G1) card, Saratoga Saturday, and Woodbine Oaks – and by the way we were running 11 races at Colonial Downs in a driving rain storm. (I’m halfway through the next paragraph and realized I didn’t even mention Del Mar opened up!) So here Sunday evening as I type this, I feel like I’m digesting it all. 

Saturday’s Haskell proved to be a thrilling stretch drive and added another chapter to both Dornoch and Mindframe’s shared history. One of the things that truly makes sports – and in particular, this sport – so great is you just never truly know what’s going to happen. Sometimes the gates open and a great horse like Thorpedo Anna comes out slowly and the whole crowd gasps, wondering if she’ll overcome the bad beginning (spoiler: She did). Other times a horse like Mindframe looms up and looks like he’s going to go by and win the Haskell easily (spoiler: He didn’t). 

During Colonial’s races, I usually go on with our analyst Kaitlin Free for a few races, and I’ll give a thought or two and maybe a pick. There was a race Saturday that a huge favorite looked unbeatable. But even in those instances, I try to always remember to just refer to that horse as the most likely winner. Nothing is guaranteed in this game, and it’s so rare we can really predict what’s going to happen. Hence why it’s so much fun and potentially lucrative when we can. 

Race shapes are something that fascinate me as a fan and a racecaller. Every horse is an individual, but it’s amazing how often they can be interchangeable in that we’ve seen horses do what the horses running today have always done. We see horses that get collared and back out of it. We’ve seen ones who make huge moves and blow by everyone. We’ve seen horses check and horses jump and horses run off through insane fractions. When those things happen, we usually feel like we kind of know what is going to happen afterward. The horse will quit, will keep going, or whatever. 

Yet so often, it doesn’t happen as we think. I joke sometimes that as a racecaller, the horses can hear you and want you to sound stupid. You say a horse is starting to back up; the animal will immediately accelerate. You say he’s going up and down; the horse will start gaining right away. Of course it doesn’t actually happen all that often, but it does happen. And to me that’s a beautiful part of the game. 

How often have you as a bettor said at the quarter pole or even before that “my horse is done?” If your horses run like the ones I’ve bet, then probably often. But don’t you find yourself still hoping that horse will find another gear, will start gripping the track, or something that will make the horse start to reengage? 

Part of why we do that is just hope. But we’ve also seen it happen. We know it’s possible. So much is possible in this game, and I think it’s a blessing that we still get to be surprised by it every once in a while. 

Have a great week everyone!