Return of the Bull

Perfect Bull will be making his 4yr old debut on Saturday April 17 in the 8th race at Tampa Bay Downs; post time approximately 2:43pm Central. The one mile turf event is conditioned as an Allowance Optional Claiming for four-year olds and up that have never won three races other than maiden, claiming or state bred races, or a claiming price of $50k. While the colt has six victories on his resume, the first was of course the maiden win, followed by an allowance/optional claiming race where we entered for the $75k tag (won and saved the condition), two allowance scores and then the two state bred stakes races (MN Derby and MN Classic). Thus, four of the six wins fall under the category of maiden, claiming or state bred.

The colt enters the race with seven workouts since returning to the track in February. The latest move was a half-mile drill on Tuesday and Perfect Bull is doing excellent as always. Yet, optimism is often best tempered with caution. So the trainer had a blood test performed to analyze what might not be apparent. Everything was fine except for a liver enzyme was curiously elevated. Apparently then its either the weather or the colt's been nipping at the bottle. Would it expect that from the trainer, and its an established fact of the owners, yet the colt should really lay off the sauce.

The field of ten runners includes one other contestant that entered under the allowance conditions, the remaining are entered for the $50k tag. So do we have an allowance/stakes horse facing the less regarded claiming level competition or are we facing battle tested, salty veterans that have won out their conditions? Looks to be some of both as the morning line has us pegged as the fifth choice at 8-1.

Saturday evening, we will be honored at the Minnesota Thoroughbred Association Awards Banquet where we'll be receiving the MN Champion 3yr Old Colt trophy in recognition of the Perfect Bull’s exploits last year. All you citizens of Red Dog Nation, please raise a glass of your own favorite sauce as we celebrate the start of a new campaign and savor the success of a championship season. Cheers!