Discreet Cat retired

[NoChanceToDance]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

Yeah - when he was kept well off the rail - and worked an effortless five furlongs in 57.46.....in a work that literally caused a sharp drop in off-shore future odds I think he proved he's a long in the tooth wash-up who has nothing anymore.


Or when he showed eye-catching athletic ability - beating the gate and putting himself in a dream tactical spot in the Vosburgh - I knew he was a wash-up.

Whenever he was put to any pressure in his two races - he made tremendously hard work of it...going from moving effortlessly to, almost in an instant, struggling.

Does anyone bother to watch races anymore?

I watched them and from a visually perspective, i have to agree with you. It did look like something was amiss.........

BUT......

Like i have said, would they really risk him looking like a shadow of his former self unless they were SURE he was over his illness? The answer is no.

If they did infact let him run TWICE knowing he wasn't over his problem, their business running and training skills are even worse than I thought.

Yes, he worked well, but did they scope him afterwards? It's more than likely they did, and they obviously found nothing.

Nine times out of ten over here, when they have a horse who runs WELL below expectations (which Discreet Cat did twice) the horses are soon at the vets having all over x-rays, scopes etc etc, which as you can imagine costs thousands. With money being no object, don't you think they would have tried EVERYTHING to make sure everything was okay with him? I certainly do.

As i say, from viewing those two races you would automatically think that something was 'wrong' with the animal, but i would also have to say that Godolphin would have checked him out 'with a fine tooth comb' to make sure he was as fit and healthy as they could possibly get him.

Maybe his run in the dirt mile was caused by something that wasn't quite right. I was surprised to see them retire him to stud this year when he will have both Hard Spun and Street Sense competing against him. I can't imagine anyone with the top quality mares would choose him over the other two even if they thought the price was a fair one.