Breeders' Cup Buzz Horse: #2 Wise Dan

Photo: Eclipse Sportswire

From now until the Breeders’ Cup, we’ll be counting down the Top 10 Breeders’ Cup Buzz Horses – horses we’re excited to watch run at Santa Anita this November 1-2. 

Breeders’ Cup Buzz Horse #2 - Wise Dan 

Breeders' Cup Division: Mile


WISE DAN
Breeding: Wiseman's Ferry - Lisa Danielle (Wolf Power (SAF))
Six-year-old Gelding

Trainer: Charles LoPresti

Owner: Morton Fink
Breeder: Morton Fink
 

 

*Timeform Master Rating: 135

Most Impressive Prep Race: G1 Woodbine Mile, Woodbine, Sept. 15 2013

**TimeformUS Speed Figure earned: 121
 
 
Analysis of key prep (Grade 1 Woodbine Mile): Breaking from post position number four, reigning Horse of the Year Wise Dan was placed under stout early restraint by jockey John Velazquez, and they secured the textbook "garden spot" trip, defined as being positioned a clear and isolated third while rating behind a pair of duelers who are knocking heads through solid early fractions. The garden spot trip is famous for yielding a relatively high percentage of career-top speed figures, but Wise Dan proved he needed no such tactical advantage to beat this field. 
As John Velazquez angled Wise Dan outward to the three path on the far turn, they ranged up to the duelers, who offered no resistance whatsoever. Wise Dan, under the strongest hold imaginable, pulled away from the pack through the stretch and won with condescending ease. The soundly beaten second-place finisher, Za Approval, received a five pound weight break and was defeated by three and a half lengths. He returned to win his next start, the Grade 3 Knickerbocker, by over a length while conceding between five and seven pounds of weight to the eventual second, third, and fourth-place finishers. 
- Analysis by Doug Salvatore
 

Buzz Horse Countdown:

#10 Vorda (FR)
#9 My Conquestadory  

#8 Havana 

#7 Verrazano

#6 Dank (GB)
#5 Mucho Macho Man 
#4 Declaration of War 
#3 The Fugue (GB) 
 
For Breeders’ Cup Past Performances – complete with best-in-class foreign running lines and European and North American speed figures on the same scale – get TimeformUS Breeders’ Cup PPs
 
*Timeform Master Ratings are adjusted for age, so that equal ratings mean horses of equal merit. Another way of looking at it is to see the universal rating handicap as four handicaps side by side: one for two-year-olds, one for three-year -olds, one for four-year-olds and one for older horses.
**In TimeformUS past performances, neither the Timeform Performance Ratings nor the TimeformUS Speed Figures are adjusted for age.          

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