<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-title”>quote:</div><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-content”>“There’s no merit to the suit whatsoever,” Wygod said. “I intend to defend it and I hate ambulance chasers.” </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Oh, maybe they should chase down horse vans on the way to a clinic in the middle of the night to see who’s in 'em? What an arrogant jerk. Too bad great horses can’t pick their owners. The filly deserves better.
<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-title”>quote:</div><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-content”>Originally posted by JER:
<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-title”>quote:</div><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-content”>So, it sounds pretty much like he made the decision to take the filly off the grounds. Did Julio know? I think that’s a question only he can answer.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>
If your Breeders Cup and Eclipse Award winner wasn’t in her stall that morning, there’d be an APB out on her pronto. Probably an Amber Alert too (she’s only 3!).
Of course Canani knew. But for some reason, he kept saying the filly was doing “super” all week.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>
A extremely valid point, JER, and one with great merit. And Mr. Beezer, who knows Julio better than I, has a much different opinion of it all than I do. 
But this I find odd: This was the first time SC was in season? Ever?? Every filly I’ve known has cycled long before her third year – the vast majority as long yearlings.
So the van driver takes the fall. Hope it was an expensive trip.
N
I love it - no bubble wrap for this super filly, racing her as god intended 
Blood-Horse 1/8/04 “Sweet Catomine Set to Go, Rain or Shine”
Despite inclement weather and the likelihood of an “off” track, trainer Julio Canani said the daughter of Storm Cat owned by Mr. and Mrs. Martin Wygod will run.
Sweet Catomine will be reunited with jockey David Flores, who rode the Kentucky-bred bay filly to a second-place finish in her debut at Del Mar July 31. Corey Nakatani, who was aboard in the Juvenile Fillies and for a four-length victory in the Oak Leaf Stakes (gr. II) Oct. 2, presently is serving a 30-day suspension.
Go Cat go!!! 
<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-title”>quote:</div><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-content”> Case in point, does anyone really know that the owner of “Noble Causeway” (fittingly) is Barnes & Noble founder, CEO and Forbes 400 member, Leonard Riggio? He didn’t make an $800 million fortune by being a choir boy - yet he isn’t edging out Nick Zito either to get on TV or bribe people or cover up medical visits. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
omgosh, had absolutely no idea. prediction: Wygod’s latest move backfires, just like all his other ones. 
Keep those stories coming!!!
Her taking on the boys before the Derby seems all the more likely
Filly champ may test males
By BRAD FREE - DRF 1/25/05
ARCADIA, Calif. - The filly Sweet Catomine will be freshened until March before an ambitious campaign that may lead to an April 9 clash against males in the Santa Anita Derby.
Owner-breeder Marty Wygod mapped Sweet Catomine’s springtime agenda Monday night in Beverly Hills, where she was named champion juvenile filly of 2004.
Wygod said Sweet Catomine will skip the Grade 1 Las Virgenes Stakes on Feb. 12, and aim for the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks on March 13.
Wygod was asked where she would go next. “If she wins the Oaks, probably the Santa Anita Derby.”
Of the 25 fillies who have started in the Santa Anita Derby, three have won - Winning Colors in 1988, Silver Spoon in 1959, and Ciencia in 1939. Winning Colors followed her Santa Anita Derby with a wire-to-wire victory in the Kentucky Derby.
Wygod is hopeful Sweet Catomine follows suit.
[snip]
“We don’t want to run her too many times,” Wygod said. “The Oaks is 54 days from the Santa Ysabel. To run in the [Las Virgenes] 26 days out, and come back and go in the Oaks, and then the Santa Anita Derby, and then if she’s good enough, the Kentucky Derby, is too much. That would not be fair to her. Her next race is the Santa Anita Oaks.”
Canani said Sweet Catomine might breeze a half-mile later this week. She resumed galloping on Monday.
“She’s doing unbelievable; now she is in orbit,” Canani said, adding that a start in the Santa Anita Derby could depend on “if there are no superstars coming up.”
<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by lizathenag:
Trainer said she was not 100% for the race. I am not sure what that meant. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
With the very heavy rains in California, Sweet Catomine really hadn’t had much of a chance to stretch her legs in a training program they would’ve liked. Thus her trainer said she wasn’t only at about 70% of her true stregnth.
David Flores (the jock) was clearly told to not impress the grandstands with a blowout - she did only what she needed to do to win, plus learn yet another lesson about coping with traffic and to pace herself.
There is plenty more power on tap with her
<span class=“ev_code_BLUE”>The 2005 Kentucky Oaks website is loaded</span>
For anyone who hasn’t seen Sweet Catomine run I would suggest checking out the videos on-line of the big gal! Oaks link to the Cat’s stats, photos and videos
Lets hope they switch her over from the Oaks to the Derby
Go baby Go!
Santa Anita - race 3 - Santa Ysabel Stakes: 1/16/05
Sweet Catomine with ease over the field
1 1/16 Miles.
1st Sweet Catomine - won in 1:43.47
2nd Pussycat Doll
3rd On London Time
The supercat was carrying 124 lbs to the others 115 lbs. I think she is ready for taking on the boys!
[edited for correct finishing time]
Regarding Sweet Catomine and going into heat - from what I read, this was the first time Martin Wygod saw her go into heat [before a race]. I truly doubt she has never gone into season before.
As for the driver, Dean Kerkhoff, it looks like he is taking full ownership on the “pony” coverup.
From The New York Times (4/13): [I]Kerkhoff said yesterday in a telephone interview that neither Canani nor Wygod had instructed him to misidentify Sweet Catomine when she departed Santa Anita.
“Everything that was done was legal and in the best interests of the horse,” Kerkhoff said.
“That was my own doing,” he replied, in acknowledging that Sweet Catomine was identified as a pony. “I wasn’t thinking about the betting public. I didn’t want people in the barn area to know about it. If word got out, more horses might have been entered in the race to run against her.”[/I]
As for the Sweet Catomine talk is that she will go to Bill Mott in NY and race at both Belmont - not the Belmont Stakes - and Saratoga.
In parting Julio Canni said this:
“We all get fired,” he said. “I hope the filly comes back and wins, and I wish Mr. Wygod well.”
thanks for the explanation. I was afraid she was only 70% sound.
The Last Word? Perhaps
Disgging this old thread out of the archives as I ran across this interesting aside today … 
What’s in a name?
Hyperbaric, who won his debut Sunday against older maidens, is trained by Julio Canani. Last year, Canani trained Sweet Catomine, the Marty Wygod-owned horse who in 2004 was the Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old filly.
But Canani had a falling out with Wygod after Sweet Catomine ran poorly in the Santa Anita Derby, and it was subsequently revealed that Sweet Catomine had spent some time away from the track earlier that week, including being treated in a hyperbaric chamber near Wygod’s farm, which is about 2 1/2 hours from Santa Anita.
Hyperbaric, a colt by Sky Classic, is owned by Prestonwood Farm.
Source: CBS Sports/DRF 8-30-06
