UPDATE – Thoroughblog has been edited since original posting this morning
CONGRATULATIONS BILL TALLON
After 34 years with DAILY RACING FORM, mostly as the Canadian editor and a lot as beat writer, handicapper and all-around organizer of the Canadian troops, BILL TALLON is retiring as of Friday November 15. 2013. Hard working and a friend to the Woodbine backstretch and beyond, Bill was THE source for racing news in Ontario. He knew who was racing in what upcoming stakes race, he was eager to cover all the horsepeople no matter how big or small the outfits, he loves to bet and bring friends to the races and he is very generous with his time.
From the Sovereign Awards committee to the Thoroughbred Racing Club to all the seminars he has done with yours truly and others, Bill devotes a ton of time to the game. And I know he will continue to do so – right after he gets back from a very long hiatus at his pad in Florida!!
all the best Bill!!
BILL (right) is on the Sovereign award committee and helps out a lot with that big event. Here is is shown with Michael Veitch.
No one else could read his scribbles but Bill is the best notetaker and hardest worker in Canadian racing!
WOODBINE HONOURS BILL TALLON
Bill Tallon, who has been with the Daily Racing Form since 1979 and has served in the capacities of Canadian editor and correspondent, Woodbine racing reporter, and Toronto business manager, is retiring, effective Saturday
Bill fell with love with horse racing when he first attended Woodbine with his father in 1965.
After attending the University of Toronto and Carleton University, and post-graduate studies at York, he graduated with a Master’s degree in English in 1979.
He joined DRF as a handicapper in the spring of 1979. He was assistant editor, then editor, when he moved from the office to take on on-track writing and reporting duties in 1993.
He earned a Sovereign Award, in the outstanding feature article category, in 1996.e has served as a member of the Jockey Club of Canada and the Sovereign Award committee.
He has also served as a member of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame’s Thoroughbred Nomination and Election committees.
“Bill chronicled Woodbine and Canadian horse racing, both on and off the racetrack, in a tremendously balanced way,” said John Siscos, WEG’s Senior Manager of Communications. “He will be sorely missed both personally and professionally by many in the horse racing community. We wish him the best in all future endeavours.”
Bill will be on Woodbine’s sixth floor, in or around the Canadian office of the Daily Racing Form, throughout much of the next two days and can be reached at 416-798-4099 x221.
SAM-SON FARMS BUSY AT CHURCHILL DOWNS THIS WEEKEND
Canada’s legendary Sam-Son Farm has enjoyed some wonderful moments beneath Churchill Downs’ famed Twin Spires, but it has been some time since its distinctive red silks with gold sleeves have visited the winner’s circle after a major race here.
Trainer Malcolm Pierce hopes that will change Saturday night when he brings a pair of Sam-Son homebreds to the Louisville track to compete in the stakes races for 3-year-olds on turf that are the main events on the Fall Meet’s only “Downs After Dark” program of racing under the Churchill Downs lights.
The first to see action will be Golden Sabre, a late-developing son of Medaglia d’Oro who will break against the hedge when he faces a dozen rivals in the 10th running of the $100,000-added Commonwealth Turf (Grade III). The race for open company at 1 1/16 miles on the Matt Winn Turf Course is scheduled as the seventh of 10 races on Saturday evening.
Two races later Pierce will saddle Dance Again when the homebred daughter of Awesome Again faces 13 3-year-old fillies in the 23rd running of the $175,000-added Mrs. Revere (GII).
The Woodbine-based Pierce is making a stop at Churchill Downs with the stakes duo as the season at the Toronto track wraps up and his stable begins its journey south for a winter at New Orleans’ Fair Grounds.
He hopes to wrap up the racing year for both on a high note in those races, which are among the year’s last opportunities for 3-year-old turf horses to face members of their age group in graded stakes competition.
Both horses are coming into their debuts at Churchill Downs off strong runs at Woodbine. Golden Sabre got up to nip Commonwealth Turf rival River Seven by a neck in a 1 1/8-mile turf allowance on Sept. 29. Dance Again comes into the Mrs. Revere off a last-to-first victory in Woodbine’s $150,000-added Carotene at 1 1/8 miles turf on Oct. 13. It was the second win in nine starts for Dance Again and her first triumph in a stakes event.
“Both of them area really training well,” Pierce said. “I think that Golden Sabre is quite a nice colt. He should be a stakes winner already, but he got disqualified in the Charlie Barley back in the summertime. But he’s quite a nice horse.
“Dance Again is coming out of a stakes win. Obviously I think both of them are doing good and can make a good showing for themselves down there.”
Sam-Son’s biggest victory at Churchill Downs was a triumph by Canadian Horse of the Year Dance Smartly in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff (GI) under Hall of Fame jockey Pat Day in 1991.
Wilderness Song, who finished seventh as part of a betting entry with her stablemate, remained at Churchill Downs to run second to Fit for a Queen in the Churchill Downs Budweiser Breeders’ Cup, a Grade III race at a mile that is now the Chilukki (GII). The Wild Again filly returned the following autumn to win the race, which by then was a Grade II event, by 5 ½ lengths as the favorite.
She returned for one more shot at the race in 1993, but ran fourth in a stellar group that included the victorious Miss Indy Anna, the favored front-runner ridden by Day, and runner-up One Dreamer, who would return to Churchill Downs a year later to score a 45-1 upset in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
Sam-Son has a total of five stakes wins at Churchill Downs, with the most recent being a win by Always a Classic in the 1997 Early Times Turf Classic (GI) (now the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic). Sam-Son also won the 1993 American Turf with Desert Wave and that year’s Early Times Mint Julep with Classic Reign.
Golden Sabre appears to have a splendid opportunity to collect Sam-Son’s first Churchill Downs stakes victory in more than 16 years. Oddsmaker Mike Battaglia has installed the Sam-Son colt as the 5-1 co-second choice with Canadian rival River Seven. Alto Racing LLC’s Winning Cause, winner of the Coolmore Lexington (GIII) on synthetic Polytrack for trainer Todd Pletcher, is the lukewarm 4-1 morning line choice.
A late June 7 foal, Golden Sabre got a belated start on his racing career with a fourth-place finish over synthetic Polytrack in a Woodbine maiden race on April 26. He won easily on turf at next asking on June 13, then finished first less than a month later in the $125,000 Charlie Barley Stakes on turf, but was disqualified to fourth for interference in the stretch.
A mishap during training hours kept him away from competition for the July 6 Charlie Barley until his win over River Seven on Sept. 20.
“He dropped the rider on the way home from the track that day and slipped on the pavement,” Pierce said. “He was all scraped-up on one side from falling on the pavement, so that took some time to get all that healed-up. I thought he was maybe going to be out for the season, but he healed up faster than I expected and made it back for that last race. I thought that was a big effort.”
The development of Mrs. Revere contender Dance Again has been more gradual. She is out of dam produced by Dancethruthedawn, a daughter of Dance Smartly who defeated males in the Queen’s Plate and won the Go for Wand (GI). She broke her maiden at Fair Grounds in her third start, but it took six more starts before she returned to the winner’s circle with a victory over stablemate Smartyfly in the Carotene, a 1 1/8-mile turf race on Oct. 13.
“She went into that race in good order,” Pierce said. “She was just training so good. She was training with horses like (Sam-Son homebred) Up With the Birds, who won the Jamaica (Grade I) at Belmont. After he won that race I was pretty confident she was going to run a big race.”
Dance Again is rated a 30-1 longshot in Battaglia’s morning line, but her pedigree holds the potential for success. Her dam, Song of the Lark, is a daughter of Wilderness Song.
Pierce will be at Churchill Downs to saddle his horses. He’ll drive down from Toronto on Friday, stop in Louisville and head on to New Orleans after the race. He hopes that his horses have more luck in their races than they had at the post draw. Golden Sabre will break along the hedge in the one post, while Dance Again drew number 12 of 14 in the Mrs. Revere.
“I would have preferred for them to both be in the middle, but you can’t pick your post position,” Pierce said. “Hopefully they’re good enough to win from any post.”
TURALLURE PUT DOWN
From the Social network world…
WOODBINE MILE winner TURALLURE broke a hind pastern galloping this morning at Keeneland. He was put down. He is a son of Ontario sire Wando.
Turallure had not won a race since the 2011 Mile and in recent outings, he was well back in the Shadwell Mile and then in his latest race, he was 6th in an allowance race at Keeneland.
