BETTING

Nails longest shot horse of his life
Les Buzzell bets $70 on 95-1 horse at Santa; also wins half the pick-5 pool at Tampa

"I WON BIGGER" GROUP PLAY

Caveman alert
New "go for the gusto" strategy will feature giant group tickets; get involved!

HERE COME THE COLLOSAL CUPS

• Jan. 23: $4 million Pegasus World Cups
• Feb. 20: $20 million Saudi Cup
• March 27: $12 million Dubai World Cup

Big cut: UAE Derby slashed from $2.5 million to $750K
All undercard races on Dubai World Cup Day in March take a hit

Plus Que Parfait winning the UAE Derby last March with $2.5 million purse, now reduced to $750K (Dubai Racing Club/Neville Hopwood)

The UAE Derby, a Kentucky Derby prep race that is one of nine races to be run at Meydan Racecourse on Dubai World Cup Day on Saturday, March 27, in the United Arab Emirates has taken a big purse hit. The purse will be $750K, down from $2.5 million last year.

In fact, a total of $8.5 million has been lopped from the eight races on the undercard. Left untouched is the $12 million Dubai World Cup. Total purse money this year is still a hefty $26.5 million.

Plus Que Parfait, trained by Brendan Walsh, won last year’s UAE Derby. In 11 races since then, the colt’s best finish was second in the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic Stakes. His $1.8 million in earnings came primarily from his UAE Derby victory.

THE PEGASUS: The fifth running of the Pegasus World Cup Invitational on dirt will go a week from Saturday at Gulfstream. See possible list of starters here. The previous winners of the 1 1/8-mile dirt race were: World's Best Racehorse Arrogate (2017), Horse of the Year Gun Runner (2018), Breeders' Cup Mile winner City of Light (2019) and Mucho Gusto (2020). There will also be the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational.

YOU NAMED ME WHAT? Not Tonight Bobby. At first blush, the name of this 3-year-old filly racing at Gulfstream Park leads the mind in one direction but that changes when you note the name of the filly’s sire is Shanghai Bobby. Let me guess, though, the person(s) who named the filly is enjoying his/her cleverness. Was it one of her Kentucky breeders? Castle Park Farm, Frederick Wieting, John McCormick or Bridget Sperl?

Derek Corbel is ASD starter and assistant director of racing

FLASHBACK

ASD race-starter Derek Corbel rode at Aqueduct
"I remember the horses in front of me getting smaller and smaller"

Did you know that Derek Corbel, Assiniboia Downs’ race starter and assistant director of racing, rode in a race at Aqueduct in New York in 1995 at the age of 21? He was representing Canada in a world final for amateur riders after being named Canadian amateur champion for riding two winners in one day (Sept. 4, 1995) at Assiniboia Downs.

Derek Corbel (left) with Nik Goodwin in 1995 before winning amateur race on Lord of the Pack

The 6-furlong $29,000 race was on Dec.10, a day so cold (“minus 50 windchill,” he remembers) that he borrowed cold-weather gear from jockey Richard Migliore. But he particularly remembers the no-talent horse he was drawn to ride. “I was sick,” he recalls. In seven starts, the 3-year-old gelding, All America, had finished last or nearly last and did not even finish two races. The horse, the longest shot in the 11-horse field at 74-1, broke last and went backwards from there. “I just remember the horses in front of me getting smaller and smaller,” Corbel painfully recalls. See the race chart for that race here.

That race brought to an end his two-year dabbling as an amateur rider. Weighing in at 135 pounds (amateur riders carried 140 pounds), Corbel rode in six races, logging two wins at ASD and a second at Marquis Downs in Saskatoon. His cousin, Keith, had a couple starts as an amateur in 1997, winning one of the races.

DEREK’S FATHER, EMILE CORBEL trained at ASD primarily from 1984 to 2015, logging 844 wins from 5,885 starts. His top horse, Ericka’s Lass, won six stakes races. He made headlines in 2011 when he went on a limb to guarantee that Jon’s Golden Run, a horse named for Manitoba Olympic skeleton gold medalist, Jon Montgomery, would win the nine-horse Buffalo Stakes for 2-year-olds--which the horse did--and never won again in 13 starts.

ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY

THIS SATURDAY’S PREP RACE: The $200K Lecomte Stakes at Fair Grounds. Horse to beat: Mandaloun trained by Brad Cox. The colt is two-for-two as a 2-year-old. Highest Equibase speed: 94.

NEXT FRIDAY’S PREP RACE: The $150K Smarty Jones on opening day of Oaklawn’s 2021 race meet. The stakes race is named for the colt, Smarty Jones, who won three prep races and the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes in 2004.

FASTEST HORSE SO FAR IN DERBY PREP RACES: Life Is Good. E speed 112.

THE WEEK THAT WAS

Richard Mairs Will he ride at ASD this year?

WILL ASD’S 2019 LEADING RIDER, RICHARD MAIRS, RETURN THIS SEASON? Jamaican jockey Richard Mairs, ASD’s leading rider in 2019, will be back riding at ASD this spring if Derek Corbel, ASD’s assistant director of racing (see above), gets his way. He was preparing foreign-worker paperwork this week to make it possible for Mairs and about nine other jockeys from the Caribbean to come and ride at ASD with federal approval. COVID-19 prevented the jockeys from coming to Canada last year.

QUEEN’S PLATE SET TO RUN SUNDAY, AUG. 22: Woodbine has announced it will stage the 162nd Queen’s Plate about two months later than it usually has: Sunday, Aug. 22. “We are optimistic that this timing could give us the best opportunity to welcome guests back at Woodbine Racetrack for the most exciting event on the Canadian horse racing calendar," Jim Lawson, president and CEO of Woodbine Entertainment said.

SAD NEWS: MIGHTY SAM-SON FARM BREAKS UP: On the auction block in Keeneland this week have been broodmares from the mighty Canadian-owned Sam-Son Farm which the owners are breaking up after almost 50 years in the horse breeding/racing business. Mark Samuel, who is an equestrian rider, has been quoted as calling his Farm’s dispersal “a bittersweet outcome of a long-term evaluation and discussion.” Among the Farm’s most famous horses have been Dance Smartly, the first Canadian owned and bred horse to win a Breeders’ Cup race and the second filly ever to win the Canadian Triple Crown; Breeders’ Cup winner Chief Bearhart and Eclipse Award winner Sky Classic.

Frankel, the greatest racehorse in the world 2010-2011 (focusonracing.com photo)

OWNER/BREEDER OF WORLD’S GREATEST RACEHORSE DIES: Prince Khalidbin Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the founder in 1977 of one of the biggest horse breeding/owning operations in the world, Juddmonte Farms, has died at 83. You know him best, perhaps, as the owner of Arrogate, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Pegasus World Cup and Dubai World Cup, but Europeans know him best as the breeder/owner of the greatest racehorse in the world from 2010-2011, Frankel, who was 14 for 14 including Europe’s classiest races.

Juddmonte logged more than 500 stakes wins, 440 of which were won by horses he bred. One-fifth of his stakes victories were Grade/Group 1 calibre. "Prince Khalid will always be remembered as a quiet, dignified, benevolent family man, whose horses spoke for him,” a Juddmonte spokesperson was quoted as saying.

THOUSAND WORDS RETIRED TO STUD: Thousand Words, the colt I had backed to win the Kentucky Derby, has been retired to stud with a fee of $7,500 to $10,000. Purchased for $1 million as a yearling, he flashed brilliance as a 2-year-old but had an erratic 3-year-old career, winning two stakes but inexplicably finishing up the track in others despite outstanding workouts. He never got to run in the Kentucky Derby because he flipped in the paddock before the race. Trained by Bob Baffert, the son of Pioneerof the Nile earned $327,500 (9-4-1-0). Will his progeny outshine him?

Savvy football picks by TravyFootball: Divisional playoffs