Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem Dec. 5, 2024

A good Thursday morning to you all! Never a quiet week in horse racing and this one was no exception. I talked a lot about the Paco Lopez incident at Parx over on the podcast, so I don’t want to dwell on that too much here other than to say I’m very curious to see how this plays out. I think myself and many others are unsure where the lines of HISA and stewards and tracks all intersect, so my curiosity mainly stems to see who and how any punishment is decided upon. What he did seemed so unnecessary and hopefully doesn’t happen again by him or any rider for that matter. 

So on to some happier thoughts on this Thursday. While calling the races on Wednesday at Tampa I got a note from a buddy on Twitter that Flightline’s half-sister will be debuting at Tampa Bay Downs on Saturday. Flight of Fancy is her name and she’s entered in a maiden allowance event going six furlongs. The second I read that news I was half excited, and half nervous, just because I know obviously a lot of folks are going to want to see her run. The forecast is supposed to be sunny all week, so she’ll get a fast track to run over, but it’s a full field she’s up against. 

Big name debuts are always really fascinating as a racecaller. You certainly have to be ready and aware for them to run really big and hype that up. Ideally of course you’d like to treat it as you would any horse’s debut, but the facts are the facts, and people will be watching, and betting, on her because of who she’s related to. It becomes the major story. Now while it’s important to be prepared for moments like this, I think it’s also important to be ready in case they don’t run well. You certainly don’t want to rub it in, but most of all I think you don’t want to short change the winner. 

I still have my program from when Maximum Security ran in the Pegasus S. at Monmouth in his first start since the Kentucky Derby DQ. He was a huge favorite and I had scribbled down several lines and phrases to use for when he inevitably drew away in the stretch and jogged home. I remember telling myself, “he’s supposed to win this race, keep it low key, no yelling, no embellishment.” I have this very clear memory of him being pressed by King for a Day and at the quarter pole thinking, “ok throw out all the notes and just call the race.” I was so proud of that call because it came out really well, in my opinion, and was totally off the cuff. But it was a really good lesson in how hard it is to plan ahead for things to happen in a race, because so often they don’t happen as we think. If they did, we’d all be a lot better at the windows right? 

I think one of the debuts that really sticks out to me still is the $16 million sales purchase, The Green Monkey. I remember watching that debut at my mom’s house, and midway through the race realizing, holy moly he’s not going to win. Not only did he not win, I think he finished a well-beaten third. He ran two more times, both fourth place finishes, and then he was retired. Of course there’s a list a mile long of million dollar debut runners who won on debut. But the list is probably just as long of those who didn’t win. I’d actually be curious to hear the debut record for horses who were sold for seven figures at auction. One thing I’m sure of, they’re almost always short prices. The ROI can’t be positive on those type of horses. 

But Saturday should be fun and let's hope we get to see what Flight of Fancy can do. She’s obviously in a big shadow, but it will be her journey, and it will start Saturday here in Florida.