Focus Pocus
- Bruno@Racingwithbruno
- May 1
- 4 min read
The Kentucky Derby is a great place to work on focusing on attention to detail. You can be overrun, run over, plastered in your seat by commentary, scattered jargon from pundits descending upon the Twin Spires, ready and willing to drop their knowledge on you.
Focus Pocus and you can wish them all away and rely on your own eyes and common sense, a little thing that is sorely lacking in today's society, common sense is not so common especially in the Kentucky Derby race to be the first to post.
Let's talk about some horses.
Ah… Sandman.
Over the course of the week, many of you have no doubt noticed a handful of features we've released across social media—carefully curated glimpses, really. Like rare stamps, or forbidden wines. Each horse, a character in a larger drama. But let’s focus now, shall we? Let’s talk about Sandman.
A name that conjures dreams, and rightly so. But don’t let the softness of the moniker lull you into complacency. This horse isn’t some whimsical bedtime story. No. Sandman is a craftsman. A sculptor of strides. He doesn’t gallop—he carves through the earth. And if you were watching this week, truly watching, you saw it.
The way he moved over the surface—measured, intentional, powerful without being ostentatious. There’s a calm beneath him, a quiet calculation. You don’t train that into a horse. That kind of poise is born, not bred.
His work this week? Crisp. Focused. Not flashy, but deeply professional—like a man who doesn’t raise his voice because he knows he doesn’t have to. Horses like this don’t scream for attention. They command it in silence.
Now, is Sandman the horse to beat? That depends. On the pace, the setup, and, of course, the chaos only the Derby—or Oaks—can bring. But I’ll say this: in a sea of noise, Sandman is a whisper worth leaning into. A horse that doesn't just show up—he arrives.
More to come, of course. We’re just getting started:
I have to give props to Mark Casse, Sandman is a Tapit, Mark has kept him from being a Tapit. He has handled him lightly in the morning, if you crank up a Tapit in the morning they mentally go the other way and want to do too much. The best Tapits are the lightly made Tapits, not the bulky ones, Sandman is a lightly made Tapit. A fine athlete, and Mark has kept him in check by not overdoing it in the mornings. In this work he just dropped his head and did his thing like a gentleman. He didn't need to go fast, he displayed well controlled energy. Big props to Mark Casse for getting into this horse's head and executing a conditioning program while keeping his feet on the ground
We stay right in the Casse shedrow:
Let's put the spotlight on La Cara: 46 flat work on April 22. We need context 1st of all, she won the Ashland at Keeneland, April 7, 15 days later she is working. First of all, you notice there isn't a whole lot to her, she is slender, light made thatfilly. Folks love to see high energy, but high energy after a race can easily go the other way, you need to see the horse shut down, drop head and not be eager, she is too eager, La Cara pinned her ears and took off, took a breath after the wire and took off again, she never shut down. You cannot expect, IMO, a lightly made filly to lay her body down every time on the track. They turn physically into greyhounds. Too much energy is not positive and sometimes much less is more. This was a bit much for her coming off a big race IMO. People love fast works without regard to the how it affects the horse overall. They just want to see fast, I like to see a horse drop his or her head and just relax, chill.
Coal Battle. This post drew over 28.8K views on social media.
Take a look at Coal Battle: To understand Coal' you watch his exercise rider, not only here but in everyone of his works. First of all, see her feet firmly implanted in stirrups because Coal' got revved up when horses flew by on a gallop out. She is retraining Coal. As the work goes, Coal has relaxed and moving extremely well, as she does in every one of his works, she adjusts the left rein to control him from not doing too much more. She is NOT, in any way asking him to run. She is controlling him. She does this every work I have seen going to back to December.
There has been much written and discussed about Sovereignty, how he has gotten hot, from my point of view, there have been three instances that pricked my ears.
1,) he was hot in his appearance after his April 19th work.
2.) He got hot in the paddock showing a bit of antsyness coming out of the paddock
On his exit from the paddock, he displayed nervousness, his legs moving like pistons, that is not a positive mental attribute and he was wet on the neck, signs of washyness
3.) He got hot at the gate when schooling.
All signs of anxiety.
He has been cool when not exposed to the gate or the paddock. He is worth monitoring on Derby day and how he behaves, if there is some nervous energy he is worried about something, keep your focus on he handles everything.
Once again, regular Joes do not pay attention to small details about horses, it simply evades them like a thief in the night.
Horses talk to you, but you have to understand their language, you have to be listening. If all you want to do is talk, you will never hear them
I am Racingwithbruno and this is what I do.
