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.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by NoChanceToDance

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.

I thought the same thing when he was brought back for the Vosburgh.

And he looked like a 1/9 shot at the 3/8ths pole...and all was right in the world.

The final 3/8ths was the horse racing equivalent of this Spears photo.....



The horse might have trained, looked, and felt spectacular....however, he ran like a horse with a serious throat issue/breathing problem.

[NoChanceToDance]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

The horse might have trained, looked, and felt spectacular....however, he ran like a horse with a serious throat issue/breathing problem.

I won't argue with you there.

Although i don't believe it was that problem that caused him to run so badly.

I tell you what i will do. I will get onto my friend Chris who works for Godolphin in America. He knows Discreet Cat quite well and will know much more than both of us.

I'm not promising that he will give too much away (you know how tight lipped these big operations are), but i can only try and find out what he knows.

He is coming home over Xmas, i think, so if i don't manage to get anything out of him tomorrow i will probably bump into him over the christmas and new year period.

[freddymo]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

I thought the same thing when he was brought back for the Vosburgh.

And he looked like a 1/9 shot at the 3/8ths pole...and all was right in the world.

The final 3/8ths was the horse racing equivalent of this Spears photo.....



The horse might have trained, looked, and felt spectacular....however, he ran like a horse with a serious throat issue/breathing problem.

So doable DrugS this is prime double wide stuff..Obviously you need help

[ELA]

I would think the connections never thought about the loss of stud fee(s) in bringing him back. They are not looking to make a stallion. What they thought, why they did, etc., it's nothing but a fallacious arguement.

If he's truly going to be open, I think he could attract mares that that level. He doesn't have to be a typical commercial stallion with the connections however and of course he's not being marketed to breeders here in this forum.

Eric

[Pedigree Ann]

From all accounts, the illness this horse suffered was a lingering one; took a long time to clear. Even human athletes sometimes have problems coming back as good as they were before after a serious illness - that was what made Lance Armstorng so remarkable - and they can tell their doctors how they feel. Discreet Cat's body may have been sapped of strength in ways that don't show up on a scan. I was never a big fan of this over-hyped horse (you should have heard the GB commentators before the race; they seem to consider him one of their own and a sure thing) but I can excuse these post-illness performances.

[Charismatic1]

Originally Posted by NoChanceToDance

True, but that will probably be higher than he is worth. I can't help but think he is such a weak individual. Sometimes you just look at him and you think a gust of wind would blow him over. I think breeders would be concerned about that physical weakness being past on to his progeny. I could be wrong, but that would certainly be in the back of my mind if i was contemplating sending a mare to him.

I doubt that Darley really wanted him to be retired this year. So it must have been the only option, which makes you wonder what might actually be wrong with him. Surely in the best of worlds they wouldn't want him having to compete with the likes of Street Sense and Hard Spun.

Like that's EVER stopped breeders in this industry. Soundness seems to be the last thing on the minds of most Kentucky breeders, and, perhaps, breeders in general. Hell, I bet you see some breed-to-race people dumb enough to breed to Discreet Cat. I still can't believe stallions like Forestry (DC's sire) and Unbridled's Song are so popular. Their offspring can't stay sound if they trained on marshmellows. They just ignore soundness issues and blame it on track surfaces. But hey, those sires sell well and that's the biggest thing, right? In that area, Discreet Cat will probably follow in his father's and grandfather's hoof prints. For my sake, I hope he does.

[31lengths]

Originally Posted by my miss storm cat

Cause it's pretty?

says who???

[horseofcourse]

I'm not sure what this horse ever did. So his signature win in this country was the Cigar Mile over Badge of Silver and a past his prime Silver Train?? I guess that's HOF material there.

[declansharbor]

Originally Posted by horseofcourse

I'm not sure what this horse ever did. So his signature win in this country was the Cigar Mile over Badge of Silver and a past his prime Silver Train?? I guess that's HOF material there.

According to some, that race alone put him amongst the best horses of 2006. We've seen what he has done when thrown against stiffer competition. Withers away.

[SentToStud]

Originally Posted by horseofcourse

I'm not sure what this horse ever did. So his signature win in this country was the Cigar Mile over Badge of Silver and a past his prime Silver Train?? I guess that's HOF material there.

Good question. My initial reaction was, "Retired from what?"

[LARHAGE]

Tom Amoss on TVG 's the works said that horses with severe throat problems are never the same, they run fantastic works because they are not under any pressure, but race conditions prompt them to exert themselves and they don't breathe the same, kind of like people who have had a bad case of Bronchitis, you can heal to be healthy for normal exercise, but when really exerting yourself you cough and labor due to the earlier damage to your lungs.

[cakes44]

How about horses that suffer from severe overratedness? Did Amoss say anything about the recovery of horses who ail from it?

[ELA]

Personally, I don't see what the big deal is about. Some people saw this horse and knew that he was an extremely talented horse, had a great deal of potential, etc. -- and others thought he was nothing more than a common horse who couldn't or wouldn't race, etc.

Then, I think there are people who just dislike a horse when he/she can't live up to their expectations of what a horse could and should do, where and when they should race, etc. And then there are people who have no idea what they are looking at and they tend to collapse handicapping with being a qualified and good jusge of horseflesh.

As far as the problem, I would guess that nobody will ever know the truth, and I am not sure that makes a difference in how good the horse was, might have been, etc.

Anyway, a lot of good points here.

Eric

[ArlJim78]

Originally Posted by Cardus

So the answer to the question is that you don't know that his problem was never cleared, or reared its head again in the Vosburgh, but that you are speculating. Had you posted Merasmag's post about a horse's flapping tongue or open mouth, that would be substantive information.

I wouldn't be surprised if Godolphin announces that his breathing problem resurfaced either because it actually did or to mask two sub-par performances, but I'd like to know what hard evidence exists to date.

Would you print that in a newspaper as fact (as opposed to posting it here) without hard evidence and/or Godolphin quotes?

i agree, its mere speculation to assign the cause of his sub par efforts to a severe breathing problem. i don't pretend to know what the issue is but wouldn't a severe breathing problem more severely affect his performance? can a horse with a severe breathing problem still put up 95-100 beyers, or what ever it is that his recent efforts have resulted in? it would seem to me that if the horse couldn't breath right he either wouldn't run a step, or would run for awhile and then fade badly. he actually came on again late in the mile to get third, sorta like he dug in to hold on for third in the Belmont race. everything I have read from them so far is that they are totally perplexed by the performance and have not assigned the cause for his decline to any throat or breathing issue.

i wouldn't rule out that part of the decline is merely that he was just not able to handle real competition or adversity, like the off going. He was not a very proven individual, triumphing over adversity or top competition.

[freddymo]

Originally Posted by Charismatic1

Like that's EVER stopped breeders in this industry. Soundness seems to be the last thing on the minds of most Kentucky breeders, and, perhaps, breeders in general. Hell, I bet you see some breed-to-race people dumb enough to breed to Discreet Cat. I still can't believe stallions like Forestry (DC's sire) and Unbridled's Song are so popular. Their offspring can't stay sound if they trained on marshmellows. They just ignore soundness issues and blame it on track surfaces. But hey, those sires sell well and that's the biggest thing, right? In that area, Discreet Cat will probably follow in his father's and grandfather's hoof prints. For my sake, I hope he does.

Yeah it's hard to believe that folks are breeding to Song and Forestry when monsters like Charismatic are in Japan or Turkey waiting for good mares. I will agree the Gaga over Forestry is mostly great marketing.

[SentToStud]

I doubt we'll hear anything negative about his physical condition now that he's retired.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by ArlJim78

i wouldn't rule out that part of the decline is merely that he was just not able to handle real competition or adversity, like the off going. He was not a very proven individual, triumphing over adversity or top competition.

That is about as likely as Indian Vale being able to open up 10 on Hystericalady in the first quarter mile.

The horse worked an effortless 57.46 while well off the rail in what was probably as impressive a workout as any ever.

He's better now than he was last year - when he was ripping out 114-to-116 Beyers - and running away from fields that included Invasor and Sympatico Bribon - as well Silver Train (who won that years Met Mile and Tom Fool with GIANT figures - and was a champion sprinter the year before)

Well, better now with one obvious exception, he makes tremendously hard work of it after half his race is over.

He had BY FAR the best trip of any horse in the Vosburgh and still couldn't reach triple digits - and his mother LOVED the slop so much she upset the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes going 10 furlongs at Saratoga in stakes record time and winning by a pole at 30/1 odds.

Even with the aid of the best trip of his entire life in the Vosburgh - and the sloppy track (he won the Jerome in a canter with a massive fig in the slop at three) - he couldn't run a triple digit figure.

Remember, I only picked him to finish 5th in the Dirt Mile - and not finish last - because that field was beyond awful. He would have been a great bet against in a typical allowance race. His Vosburgh loss underlined the fact that he still has a serious problem.

It's pretty amazing that anyone can have any doubt about something so obvious.

[freddymo]

Slim Jim you are out of your league ..Let it go

[SentToStud]

He's better now with the obvious exception that he is no good.

Most any very fast horse can go 57 and change in a work.