Until now, Down The Jazz was having the tendency to turn Sharp on the third week after his last race. A race I wanted him to be part of was the Fountain Of Ute; Grade I, which would be run in four weeks time from the Holy Bull. This was not good, he probably would not be Sharp for that race. Down The Jazz returned from the Holy Bull "A Little Groggy". This made sense having just won the biggest race of his carreer and not only recording a speed figure that was his own Life Time High (LTH) of 103, that was also the highest of any 3yo to date except for Woody's Smurfs, who won the other Grade III race in California with an astounding SPF of 111 .
A surprising turn in Down The Jazz was that the very next week he then again turned Sharp. This was good news, hopefully now he will be able to turn Sharp again in two weeks for the Fountain Of Ute.
However; Progressive and recessive races are what make a form cycle. As I see it, in this game: Form Cycles Rule!!
There isn't any way in which to get around them, you either adhere to them or suffer the consequences.
What Down The Jazz was doing in his form cycle strongly suggested that his next race would for sure be a recessive race. Although he undoubtedly he is an improving horse, it is completely un-realistic to expect improvement with every start. Down The Jazz previous high SPF = 87, the 103 SPF that he recorded in the Holy Bull was 16 points higher. This makes his recent 103 SPF completely aberrant to his previous races. (The 103 SPF sticks out like a sore thumb.) Yes, a horse will have two and maybe three races in which it may improve on, but not when it's previous foundation races (In this case: 85, 84, 87) are well below it's recent good effort.
If you're like me, you hate to see your horses lose, especially when you think that you have a pretty good one. But, you ahve to realize, in order for your horse to improve again this recessive is a necessity to it's development. Horses can and do win on recessive races, it happens all the time. In this case there is one other added negative, Down The Jazz is dropping in class from graded stakes competition, this gives the hope of his winning even less likely than it already is.
Not the worst of results, he still managed to get a fourth place finish and his SPF only dropped to a 92 , which is an improvement over his past foundation races.
