Cross Traffic

Maple Leaf Mel (Cross Traffic) may have been gone since August last year, but she showed no signs of rust Friday as she floated home the easiest of winners in the East View S. at Aqueduct. A five-length winner at first-asking Aug. 10 at Saratoga in a six panel, state-bred maiden dash over the fast main track, she returned 16 days later in the slop to duel her way to an open length victory in the state-bred restricted Seeking the Ante S. over familiar face Lady Mine (First Samurai), GSP...

In a horse otherwise so well equipped for the Triple Crown trail, it's a major concern still to be quoting Milton every time the gates open: "They also serve who only stand and wait." As such, Tapit Trice (Tapit) looks like proving quite a test of the GI Kentucky Derby preparation favored by modern trainers. For all the thrilling power and fluency of his action, he's still all thumbs in terms of his professionalism. The way he got himself out of trouble in the GIII Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby...

It tells you plenty about the business today that this final leg of our quest for value on Kentucky farms should compress together stallions whose various retirements from the racetrack spanned more than decade. In devoting nearly all the previous instalments to individual classes of younger stallions, we've simply mirrored the distribution of mares, which as we all know is massively loaded towards largely unproven sires. To me, then, those few survivors that do establish a viable niche in the Bluegrass are real heroes. While dozens of their original competitors...

6th-Saratoga, $88,000, (S), Msw, 8-10, 2yo, f, 6f, 1:11.48, ft, 5 lengths. MAPLE LEAF MEL (f, 2, Cross Traffic--City Gift, by City Place), named after trainer Jeremiah Englehart's assistant trainer Melanie Giddings, entered this unveiling with a reputation that preceded her, and garnered 3-5 favoritism in this state-bred affair. Quick to the front from mid-pack, the $150,000 EASMAY purchase (:10.2) set the tempo against the fence and expanded her gap at each point of call as Spinning Colors (Hard Spun) chased in vain. In much of a one-horse race from...

What a tough game this is. You only get to show the first card in your hand before virtually the whole pile of chips is distributed. One or two players gather up their winnings, whooping triumphantly, and suddenly your own hopes of staying in the game--your hopes of a viable stud career in Kentucky--depend exorbitantly on the next card. Generally speaking, it doesn't matter if you turn out to have had a whole sheaf of aces farther into your hand. By the time you can turn those over, there will...

GI Haskell Invitational S. runner-up NY Traffic (Cross Traffic) prepped for a probable start in the GI Kentucky Derby with a five-panel bullet in 1:00.38 (1/8) in company with GISW Math Wizard (Algorithms) on the main track at Saratoga Thursday. "Math Wizard is a good work horse and with Ny Traffic, we wanted something not speedy but more for endurance. It was a steady work, but next week will probably be his stiffest work," trainer Saffie Joseph said. NY Traffic was also second in the GII Louisiana Derby and GIII...