Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem Dec. 22, 2025

Jason discusses Wolfie's Dynaghost's win at Gulfstream Park and talks about track records. 

A good Monday morning to you all! Happy Christmas week to everyone out there who celebrates, and I hope that wherever you’re spending this holiday season, that it’s a pleasant one filled with love. Since moving down to Tampa in 2021, I’ve spent each Christmas away from family, and it can make the season feel a bit lonelier. So good wishes to everyone. 

I wanted to write this weekend on Wolfie’s Dynaghost and his big run at Gulfstream Park on Saturday, setting a track record for the nine furlongs on grass and winning the Ft. Lauderdale S. (G3). He once again was able to outdoor Quatrocento early on and then put up solid fractions on the front end, before outfinishing Cugino to win comfortably in the end. His last two races, this Ft. Lauderdale S., and the River City (G3) at Churchill Downs a few weeks ago, have both been textbook frontrunning scores – going quick early and just never letting anyone get to you. They’ve been visually impressive and speed-figuratively impressive. 

Saturday’s effort was also time-impressive as he not only set a track record, but bested the over 30-year-old North American record for 1 1/8 miles on turf by a half of a second. So let’s discuss track records.

The concept of them I think is very fun and they are a cool part of our history. I think the 31-length margin of Secretariat’s Belmont (G1) is what people remember most, but the 2:24 time is a big part of the history of that race as well. Track records are meant to be special moments in the history of a track as well as something to achieve for a horse and connections. 

However, they’re so subjective and in a lot of cases, probably just incorrect. First of all, the timing back in the old days was a person with a stopwatch or timing machine watching for another person with a flag to indicate when they should start the time. We had a flag guy and manual clocker at Portland Meadows as recently as 2006 when I first started there. And we know that timing issues can sometimes still persist in racing even with beam timer technology. 

Other issues like run-up can affect a final time, as can just how fast a track is playing. We all have frustratingly seen how sometimes on big days tracks are sped up to produce fast final times. I don’t know who this benefits or why it’s ever done, but it does happen. Now sure some of that is because good horses run faster times, so maybe they just seem faster on those days. But if a horse sets a track record over a grass course and the ground was firmer than when the original record was set, is it really a better performance? I suppose maybe that’s more of a speed figure question where variants can be included. I suppose when it comes to raw time, which track records are supposed to be, then it’s simply how long did it take you to get from start to finish.

I’m a big believer in getting rid of run-ups for the starts of races, which of course would be an adjustment for pace handicapping and just fractions and times in general. But it’s such an outdated concept, similar to breakage and other old things racing should move on from. Getting rid of run-ups would also mean new track records for each distance on each course, so of course there would be lots of “new track records” for the first few seasons of new measurements and record keeping. So if you’re a track record fan, you gotta love that idea! 

Regardless of the time of Wolfie’s Dynaghost on Saturday, he was fast and surely will have a say in the Pegasus World Cup Turf (G1) next month. He’s a cool horse having a nice upswing career moment. 

Have a good week everyone and a very merry Christmas!