Whiff!

Once is an anomaly, twice is a trend. Surprisingly, amazingly, uncharacteristically, speed is holding on at Keeneland. It happened Friday, an occurrence I was willing to write off as fluke and happenstance. When it happened early yesterday afternoon, I started to second guess my play in the Lexington...but not enough to change a damn thing.

The super was filled out with two horses who ran real fast early, and two that ran sorta fast late. Samba Rooster blitzed a 1/2 in :45.21, with a :22.5 second quarter - that's the type of bottled lightning that usually results in 10th place finishes at Keeneland. This time, it meant holding on for 2nd at 17/1 and blowing up the exotic tickets.

Less impressively, Behindatthebar was able to close willingly into the fast early fractions, although his come home fractions won't put him on any Top 10 radars. It was a professional score for the Pletcher-trained son of Forest Wildcat, if not a stirring one.

Congrats to those who took down the $6958 super ($1) or the $1227 tri ($1). Well played.