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Gun Runner

Owned by Winchell Thoroughbreds and Three Chimneys Farm and trained by Steven Asmussen, Gun Runner was a late-maturing type, who did not win his first Grade One race until the final start of his three-year-old campaign. However, the son of Candy Ride won five of his six starts as a four-year-old, including the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar, and was named American Horse of the Year in 2017.

Gunner Runner raced just once as a five-year-old, but his convincing 2½-length victory over West Coast in the Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park – the most valuable race in the world – earned him £5.19 million and made him the third highest-earning racehorse in history, behind only Arrogate and Winx. All told, Gun Runner won 11 of his 18 starts, including six at Grade One level, and retired from racing with total earnings of £12.2 million.

Gun Runner raced just twice as a juvenile, making an impressive winning debut in a maiden race at Churchill Downs in September, 2015 and finishing a close fourth in the Grade Two Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes, on sloppy going, on the same course two months later. As a three-year-old, he won twice at Grade Two level and once at Grade Three level, but came up short in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, the Travers Stakes at Saratoga and the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Santa Anita before his ‘breakthrough’ victory in the Grade One Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs.

Following an impressive, 5¾-length win, at odds of 1/5, in the Grade Three Razorback Handicap at Oaklawn Park on his four-year-old debut, Gun Runner proved no match for Arrogate in the Dubai World Cup at Meydan, but finished clear second and collected £1.63 million in prize money. Other notable performances that season included a 7-length win in the Grade One Stephen Foster Handicap at Churchill Downs and a 10-length win in the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga; the former came within a whisker of breaking the track record and the latter, achieved in a time of 1 minute 47.43 seconds, was the fastest recorded in a dozen renewals of the race at the New York venue.

 

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Horse for Courses: The Course Specialist

In all areas of life there has be to a good fit. For some on couirse betting is the way to go for instance, for others, they’re primed to place a bet on online exchanges. The same applies to all area of life.  Some are loggin into top online casinos uk , while others are placing their casino chips on the cloth at their local casino.

‘Horses for courses’ is a hackneyed phrase that’s regularly bandied about in the world of horse racing, and beyond. However, of the 60 racecourses on the British mainland, many have inherent idiosyncrasies in terms of shape, topology and other characteristics that favour one type of horse over another. If a horse runs well over a particular course and distance, connections may be more likely to return it to the same course and distance, maybe more than once, leading to the possibility of a so-called ‘course specialist’

The steeplechase course at Fontwell Park, for example, is a sharp, left-handed, figure-of-eight, which is unsuitable for long-striding, galloping types. Course specialists at Fontwell Park include Mercers Court, trained by Neil King, who is 3-3 over fences at the West Sussex course, but just 5-26 over fences elsewhere. Bangor-on-Dee, in North Wales, features a more orthodox, but nonetheless left-handed, sharp and flat steeplechase course, which is on the turn almost throughout. Wandrin Star, trained by Kim Bailey, has won both starts over fences at Bangor-on-Dee but, aside from a point-to-point victory, is winless in nine starts over fences elsewhere.

On the Flat, similar principles apply to many British racecourses, including Brighton, Catterick and Chester, which are sharp, or very sharp, and feature pronounced gradients and undulations that count against big, resolute galloping types. By contrast, Doncaster, which is flat, wide and galloping in character, is very much in favour of the latter. Doncaster has seen many course specialists over the years, including Mount Logan, trained by Roger Varian, who was 3-4 on Town Moor, but just 4-20 elsewhere and, more recently, Framley Garth, trained by Lawrence Mullaney, who’s 2-3 at the course, but just 4-40 elsewhere.

So again,  like that online player on https://www.bestusaonlinecasinos.com/ , or someone that needs a different kind of atmosphere, it’s important to factor in how some environments can be better suited to you, and to horses, than others.