It's a beautiful day for Nicanor

Even though he'd yet to break his maiden until today, all of the racing world could tell you who Nicanor is. The 3-year-old brother of the late Barbaro tried turf for the first time in his fourth career start today, and this is what happened... (trust me, you'll want to see it for yourself)



I must admit, I'd sort of eased my interest in Nicanor after his back-to-back second places and his disappointing maiden start. I'd gotten sick of the Fans Of Barbaro, and those late-comers to the bandwagon who only seemed to care about Barbaro and his kin, thinking none of them could do anything wrong. I'd loved Barbaro since I first saw him in the Florida Derby and was getting a little sick of all the fanfare in trying to "duplicate" this irreplacable star.

But seeing Nicanor explode to win his turf debut made me grow a great big smile. I'd love to see him have a long, successful career on the track and do things Barbaro never got the chance to do. It would be awesome if Nicanor became the sort of horse that could run in the Arlington Million and transfer to the synthetics for the Santa Anita Handicap and other big stakes races.

I'm not getting my hopes up for these big dreams, because I think it's unfair to lay such huge expectations on a horse that knows nothing about the act he's following. Nicanor will pave his own path, and I hope, beyond everything else, it's a safe one.