Auckland Reactor

[firstoffclaim]

Came up way short at Chester today, I guess that New Zealand form is not translating too well here.

[InsideThePylons-MW]

It's tough getting adjusted to having the gas pedal on the floorboard for an entire mile. It's almost impossible to do it off a layoff. Give him a few more starts before he's labeled a NA bust.

[Pacingguy]

The Chester start was an encouraging step forward; he got to air things out for the first time and considering it was his second start, was not bad. This was certainly much better than his Meadowlands debut.

If any other horse came from down under and raced like this in their first start, people would be very excited about the horse. The problem is the syndicate that bought him, primarily to become a stallion made sure the hype found it's way up here; to build up a mystique so there would be more interest in him. The hope was to make him mythical up here so when he won, breeders would flock to him when he stands stud next year.

Remember, the plan is to have him race this summer and then retire him. It was all about marketing him to North American breeders so they can roll in the money from stud fees. They may have made a $3.5 million gamble and lost. That being said, he can still be a very good FFAller with a few starts.

[sonnyp]

years ago when it was a popular move to buy the "downunder stock" things became apparent.

coming from a different hemisphere, they needed time to adapt to severe change in climate (winter there-summer here or vice versa), no immunities to our strains of diseases and spores etc.

they did better here in winter when fractions and final times are slower but when things warmed up and they really started to "fly", the downunder horses didn't seem up to the task with top american breds.