The De Julio family Christmas party, as usual, we ate like royalty.
My Brother Marco and I cooked, Gnocchi, Lasagna, Panzarotti (fried Calzones). My brother Maurizio made our fathers desserts recipes, including a Cassata Siciliana, an Amaretto/Marzipan Sicilian cheesecake.
Lord have mercy am I stuffed. I hope you are stuffed and enjoyed your Christmas eve dinner.
We brought a ton of food back home, we will eat like kings for the next couple of days, including a couple of dessert slices, and speaking of dessert, tomorrow we kick off the holiday week with Santa Anita's opening day which every year can be legendary and arguably the best day in California racing.
Santa Anita December 26 card was always a highlight of the year. This year it seems it old times. Big day.
Fantastic card, which we have posted already. the Workout Report is lit.
The first three weeks of December are the slowest part of the racing calendar.
We are going to start paying attention now on the Derby preps, the potential of seeing the Derby winner around this time.
Baffert is debuting a heralded first time Justify colt SAN SABA:
The workout report doesn't only highlight his accomplishments in the morning but you can also see the individual himself:
The last frontier in handicapping is looking at a horse and make out more of the heads or tails, how they move is an handicapping factor in itself.
All horses are not the same, and purchase prices are not a way to handicap the individual itself. THE individual is EVERYTHING.
I have seen horses that were purchased off the catalog page, the individual seemed TO BE an afterthought. The catalog page can be addictive to some, and it seems the individual and the vet report are secondary.
I love going over our extensive video library for works and on our workout report also includes sales inspection videos.
VISUALS MATTER.
Everybody has their go to handicapping perephanalia, sheets, beyer, figures, stats, but how many can really look at a horse and tell you anything, especially without a pedigree report.
Pedigree analysis is subjective, its in the eye of the beholder, just like auction prices.
What I see in SAN SABA inspection video is a fast looking youngster with balance, I don't know how far he will go but he looks like a fast, speedy type with the exoskeleton that Baffert demands. He approves horses for purchase only if he feels if the horse has the tools and constitution to handle his style of training.
We will reiterate that all horses are not the same, and how they are built is a blueprint how they should be trained.
You cannot take a horse with conformational flaws and train them hard like Baffert does. They fall apart, no matter the pedigree page.
The other Baffert MADAKET ROAD, has a race in Stakes company in his only start under his belt and is listed at 1/2 on the morning line. He does turn back in distance. He had a good trip in debut, stalking a very fast pace, but getting run over the top by winner BULLARD whom came from last and it wasn't close at the wire.
I'll take San Saba, if 2-1 is the price at post time that's an overlay.
Looking forward to see that race among others. The Malibu, the American Oaks. the La Brea.
We have a fun day instored for us on Thursday. Big day for sure.