Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem Sept. 30, 2024

A good Monday morning to you all! Good to be back with you after a couple weeks of vacation.

In Thursday’s column, I want to write a little bit about the value of a break, as I do think it’s very important when you’re involved with something as constant and emotional as racing. It’s funny whenever I come back from vacation; I feel like it takes me a couple of weeks to get back into the rhythm of the game. You’d think it would just pick right up, but so much can happen over a few weeks. 

The Breeders’ Cup now of course becomes the next big item on the calendar, and this past weekend as well as the upcoming weekend will feature showcases of many of the contenders for the year-end championships. 

One thing I really wanted to focus on with my handicapping the last couple months, and certainly going into the Breeders’ Cup, is being more forgiving of horses’ subpar performances. I often say on my podcast that forgiveness is often where prices are found. So much attention goes to a horse’s most recent past performance line. Call it recency bias or something else, but it’s amazing how often a horse is bet or not bet based off of the previous effort. 

Yet, when discussing and looking at races, I so often find myself shying away from exactly those types of situations because I too fall victim to the recency bias. So that is kind of the mind frame I’m trying to take going into the Breeders’ Cup this fall. Of course horses can string together back-to-back wins and good efforts. But those horses are often overbet because of that. And on a weekend like the Breeders’ Cup, it seems crazy to try and hit 5-2 shots in those deep, tough races. 

I wanted to touch on a couple of efforts from this past weekend, both at Aqueduct. One was Far Bridge, who overcame what I thought was a pretty tough trip to not only win, but pass a couple of really talented turf runners while doing so. 

Far Bridge won the Sword Dancer (G1) on Travers Day by going to the front and slowing them down and kind of stealing that race at 8-1. On Saturday in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic (G1), he sat off the pace, had to wait inside and behind horses, then swing out wide, and still ran down Silver Knott and War Like Goddess. The other thing was that seemingly Silver Knott and War Like Goddess both got the jump off of better trips and still lost. It made me wonder if maybe they just didn’t fire their best efforts, but the speed figures for the race came back pretty strong. Seemingly Far Bridge is just that good right now.

In the Vosburgh (G3), it was Mufasa who scored very nicely, pulling away by over four lengths. He fell into a good trip and was favored, so it certainly wasn’t a surprise. But visually it was quite impressive, and with the dirt sprint division maybe not as tough as it’s been in some recent years, maybe this horse will have a big say in this division. He now has a free berth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1), although he’s reportedly likelier for the Dirt Mile (G1).

Trainer Ignacio Correas has had some really great success with these South American shippers before, and Mufasa might be another addition to that list that also includes Didia, Blue Prize, Kasaqui, Cheetara, Dona Bruja, and many more. We saw Mufasa at Colonial in his start previous to the Vosburgh, and while he was quite impressive, this looked like another step forward for him. He’s thrown a couple of clunkers in his career, but he’s also now won 10 of 13 starts and has shown some real high-end ability. 

This weekend will be a monster one with lots of BC prep action in California, Kentucky, New York, and Ontario. Hope everyone has a great week!