Arlington Million 2025 | Jason Beem

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Don't need to discount a ticket this weekend to head down to

Colonial Downs where they will be having their Grade 1

Arlington Million Saturday card. Excited to welcome back Jason

Beam to the show here. Jason, good morning.

How are you buddy? Yeah, yeah.

No discounts this weekend here, Lewis.

That's exactly right. No discounts down there.

Which, which weekend do you think will you know, this is

obviously you, you know, grade one, all the things.

But with the introduction of that Virginia Derby in the

spring, do you feel like you've got, you know, kind of bookends

to the season there at Colonial with those two weeks?

They probably do. I, I don't go to the spring one

because I'm down at Tampa. So I, I, I, I honestly didn't

watch it. It felt a little too FOMO for

me. Everybody said it was unreal.

Like as far as on track that I mean, it was sold out and you

know, they said it was great weather day, great atmosphere.

It's looking like we're going have a good weather day this

Sunday. So, you know, I'm obviously

very, very partial to this one because I'm involved in it.

Yeah, no, I think it should be a great day down there.

You know, you just reminded me. I I interviewed Travis Stone

right before the Arlington, before the Virginia Derby.

Excuse me? Yeah.

Yeah, He was trying to. He was like, yeah, I was working

on the sight lines and those kinds of things.

God, I totally forgot about that.

But this weekend, it's. It's, it's a tricky boost here

too. So he, he, he has to.

There it is, Jason B with us. He'll call the races at Colonial

this weekend at Bee Me Awards on Twitter.

You want to go find, if you're the one person that doesn't

follow him on Twitter, the the racing this weekend, a guy you

know you're at Tampa. You mentioned that you're there

in the spring and and the Hillsborough is the the grade 2

of record at Tampa. Then you get up to Colonial and

you call a grade one in the Arlington million.

Is there a different kind of pressure for you when you when

you see a card like this? Couple of grade twos and a grade

one in a row? You know, you know what's helped

the last couple of years, Yes, there is for sure.

I mean the millions like a historic race.

So it's yes, it's it's still a little weird because of, you

know, everything that went on that ended up bringing it here.

So that that that's for me personally a little bit of a

cloud on it. But what's helped me the last

couple years is generally by the secretariat is where I'm like

the most nervous. And by after that, like my

adrenal glands are empty. So like the last, the last two

years, once the million rolls around, like I'm actually

relatively calm. So I'm hoping that that happens

again. The first year we had 12 in the

million and it was somebody in management's idea to have same

color saddle towels. And so yeah, so that was I, I

protested that from the high hills and luckily it's not the

case anymore. But that, that I was really,

really, that was that was a challenge because I, I realized

you don't look at the saddle towel so much during the races.

You do kind of double check with them.

And I remember when set piece hit the wire, I felt so good

about the call. And then I had this momentary

panic of going that was the three right?

And I, and I couldn't check because it wasn't blue.

And so I had to wait till they were literally on the

backstretch where I could see the actual number displayed.

Oh, man. Yeah.

Set piece. What a name, man.

Yeah, Jason being with us from down there, Collodial Downs,

Arlington Million on Saturday. I wanted to ask you about the

the old all all graded stakes Pick 3 here.

That Secretariat kicks it off at race 9A mile on the turf for

three-year olds. And this is frankly unusual in

that it is so many North American based runners.

We're not really getting anyone from overseas for this one.

Does anyone stand out to you in this field itself?

No, I, I think from what I've been told is for the

international runners, it's a little trickier to get here,

whether it's quarantine or whatever it is.

I think Chicago, they kind of have the the setup for all that.

And so we are seeing a shipper for the million, but not as much

for some of the under races. I, I know dream on the favor.

I don't have my PPS in front of me.

I just got to work here. But Giacoso was kind of the one

that that I was finding a little bit interesting at first scan

just because I don't think dream on like that far ahead of

everybody. And and if he is going to be

favored and going to be a lowish price, I just, I just don't want

to take a horse that thinks on level ability and getting a

lower price than maybe some of the other ones.

And so Giacoso was kind of the early one that was that I was

finding interesting we saw. Giacoso, of course, on Derby Day

in the American turf, ran a good fifth behind Zulu Kingdom and Co

in that one. Maui Strong's in that race

coming in from Saratoga, 4th place finish in the Manila.

I'm trying to remember, is it this race that has someone

coming in for a different race coming in for the West Coast?

But yeah, dream on just out of that pen mile, that yielding

course that day. They don't they always seem now,

unfortunately, the turf monster, whatever, like all those races

there with up at Penn Mile and all those races in Pennsylvania

seem to be getting waterlogged on the turf these days.

I just, I, how do you think you're going to try to handicap

that go from a yielding course to what you guys will have on

Saturday? Well, and right now it's a good

question because it's raining as we speak and it it's supposed

to, yeah. So, so I'm very unsure of what

our turf is going to be on or good today.

We're supposed to hear the track condition here in the next like

10 minutes, I guess. But I know there's a little rain

forecasted tomorrow and then it shouldn't be much, if any Friday

and then Saturday is supposed to be good.

So it should be fast and firm. But you know, not all firms are

created the same and they're, they're very well could be a

little bit. I think what's going to help

this course this week is it looks like the rain's all kind

of just like it is right now where it's just kind of a steady

shower. This course drains exceptionally

well. And we saw it earlier in the

meet where we had like I, I drove home on a Friday night and

it was an absolute day. Loose Thunder shower, you know,

East Coast style thunderstorm. And the next day it was dried

out. And by the third race it was

fast and firm. And so we do have that going for

us. But, you know, there will

certainly be some moisture in in the track as we go throughout

the week. As far as yeah, I guess it just

depends on it kind of how it goes because I, I, I tend to

think this course as a whole play so evenly fair.

Like we just don't see a whole lot of biases develop on the

turf. The dirt can be a little bit

more. The dirt's just really fast

here. It's not that it's speed

favoring, it's just really fast. And so it tends to lend to to

being closer. But we can see a lot of closers.

But the turf courses, I mean they really, really seem fair.

The other thing to watch for this week is the rails go back

down to 0 and I think 50 or 60 for the outer.

They haven't been down there since I think opening week.

So it's a lot of fresh ground at Tampa.

They do that too, and it tends to yield inside paths being

really, really good on, on big days, not necessarily speed, but

just inside path. And I'm, I'm curious to see how

that does here because, you know, they did it the first year

set piece circled the whole field and ran by nation's pride

was more close up and, and down the inside.

So we only have two millions to, to speak for.

So, but it'll be on the outer on the outer turf and it's a little

more of a sweeping turn. And so I don't, I don't think

ground loss is as meaningful in those, those outer turf races.

Kind of like you always hear about Belmont Park like that.

It's just not as strong of a, of a sharp turn.

And you know, you, you talked about the stakes pick 3, the two

races before the, the graded stakes are both turf sprints and

they're really good races there. I know I just found out a couple

horses ran at Ellis Sunday. So there's, I, I think a couple

of the logicals might not be in. So obviously stay tuned for

scratches, but one's on the inner and one's on the outer.

They're both at 5 1/2. And those are two very different

races. And so folks, you definitely

need to pay attention when it's in and outer because the inner

is a much sharper turn. And for the sprints, it's a

little bit more of a elongated run down the back stretch where

it's, you know, on the outer they, they kind of, they get to

the turn sooner, but it's a much more sweeping turn.

Is the inner turf course A7 for a long turf course and then

essentially just start right behind there for the one mile

for the secretary? Kind of yes.

It's it's, it's a little more than 7.

So often the mile races start just inside the 16th pole.

So it's more like A and some of that's rail setting.

So actually when the rails are 0, it'll probably start after.

So it's play, it's more like a 7 1/2.

And so yeah, it's yes. So that one, I, I believe that

again, I've been looking at 50 races this week.

But yeah, so the mile races, I don't think we've ever run

actually a mile on the outer. If they did, they did it once

and it was way too long of a run up.

So we we have started running some mile and sixteenths on the

outer, but for the most part the miles are always going to be on

the inner. Jason Beam with us.

He calls the races at Colonial Downs.

It is Arlington Millions Saturday down there this

weekend. The Beverly D is race 10, Jason

mile and three sixteenths. It's on the Philly and mare side

here. Half million bucks in this one.

What do we got to do to get a bigger field for this race?

Man, I feel like it's always coming up 6-7.

It's kind of thing. It always comes up with a small

field. Yeah, I that you're a good

question. I'm sure that everybody else.

Asking the same session, yeah. We get I don't know what it is,

but Philly races in general, like they just like you look at

the three-year old Philly, you know, stakes along the Oaks

trail and stuff. It's just always a sea of 5678

horse field. And I don't know if it's I don't

know that's that's the real the real answer.

And some of it too is like there's just so many top end,

you know, I mean, especially if I think more so for the

secretary Group, like there's a lot of like 3 year old

restricted turf mile stakes within a month and a half,

two-month period. That's true.

You know, in between between Delaware pen mile, you know,

here Saratoga, NY obviously has as a bunch.

And so you know, some of it I think is a little over

saturation and and you know, like I said, some of it might be

it's a little tougher to get here.

You know, it's a bit of a ship for for any of those kind of top

class horses that aren't based here.

I did hear be your best is going to run here versus Saratoga

where she was entered, so that that's good because she'll

probably be, you know, she's coming off a grade one win.

Probably one of the favorites. This race is obviously had even

with the small fields. We've had some incredible

horses, but the, you know, the gambler in me and and again,

what our customers I think certainly want bigger fields.

And you know, and I'm no different as a race caller, it's

more of a challenge to have a bigger field.

Some announcers will tell you it's like, oh, it's so much

harder when it's only 5%. That's bull crap.

It's way harder when there's 12. Yeah, of course.

Yeah, I think they say that to like make, I get what they're

saying because you do have to slow your rhythm down and and

stuff like that. But it is not harder to call a

six horse field than a 12. Horse.

Yeah, once in a while you've got it.

But you've. Got to make it sound

interesting, right? I mean, that's probably a

challenge in itself. That's just part of the job all

the time. Yeah, right.

Yeah. But yeah, you have to

editorialize more instead of with 12, you really have to kind

of work work just to to get through them.

And so I get what they're saying.

I always feel like that's one of those things where they're

trying to like sound, sound cool.

We get a couple coming out of the anchorage here at Churchill

Downs. You mentioned be your best

coming out of the gamely at Santa Anita.

I imagine you don't have a lot of data on Santa Anita shippers

to colonial on the turf course. But do you expect her to be just

say, do you expect her to be a a worthy favorite on Saturday?

Well, I think the, I mean, obviously she the be Your best

has kind of gone back and forth, right?

She's gone out there a few different times.

And so my guess is they really think she likes that course,

which when you win the game, you probably do.

I remember talking to Billy Koch once and he was saying he had a

horse Balnikoff, who's really good turf, you know, closer and

turf router and stuff, but he just hates Santa Anita.

So if you watch like they'll try to run them at Del Mar as much

as they can and then go and then they'll go to Pimlico in the

spring and stuff like that. So a lot of it's course

dependent sappy runs out here a little bit like we, I think he's

probably run 10 or 15 here this meet and he's done pretty good.

But yeah, I, I, I wouldn't worry about any of that too much.

The prevailing thought is that like, oh, the East Coast turfers

are usually better than the West Coast turfers.

I don't know. That'd be your best as a W

coaster. I think she just goes out like

Santa Anita, but she's run good east too.

I think Gulfstream and some other places.

And like you said, Churchill, you know, Churchill's turf

different than everybody, I feel.

Like, yeah, no, you're right about four years.

Yeah, that's why I was asking. Yeah.

There's four stakes wins since November for Be Your Best, all

of them in graded stakes, 2 grade threes, a grade 2 and a

grade one. Yeah, she's doing the third

thing right now, for sure. In the million itself, that'll

be race 11, a million bucks on the line, obviously mile and a

quarter. A little bit of a strange start

there in the gate at the at Colonial there, but it is on the

on the main turf course there. Mystic Dan's going to try the

turf for the first time here. I really like this spot for him.

Jason, do you agree? I think it's, it's good a spot

of any to try, especially at a high level.

I don't think it came up particularly tough this year.

I, I think it's competitive, which is, which is good, but you

know, the Mystic Dan will be the one that gets all the press, the

stories integration because he has never won a grade one.

He's been extraordinarily close and he's done really, really

good work at this turf course. Like there are a lot of stars

lining up for him to finally breakthrough and, and win that,

you know, that grade one race. But one of my big pet peeves is

you'll hear people saying like, oh, he deserves a great none of

it. Nobody deserves a Grade 1.

You got to go get a Grade 1. And I, I just don't think he's

going to find a better spot for all factors included for him to

do that. He's also going to, there should

be some pace for him to run into.

He should be sitting just off of it.

I, I don't, I don't think he's going to find a better grade one

spot, especially for 1,000,000 bucks.

Just kind of the way everything sets up from knowing that he

loves this course, knowing that, you know, he's run big on this

course. I mean, the program trading in

the Virginia Derby program trading was a great one winner

already. And so, and then our Virginia

Derby, I mean, the last couple of the turf Virginia Derby's

deterministic just has won two great ones in a row, just won

last weekend. And then in the integration has

been a really, really good representative for that race.

So we've had some nice ones come through here.

But yeah, Mystic Dan, as far as he's concerned, I I was told it

was kind of a last minute decision.

My guess is a total guess. And maybe you know more than I

do. You're you're in Kentucky.

I would guess they're prepping for Kentucky down as kind of the

ultimate turf goal. And, you know, The thing is, if

he runs third and I, I don't know much about the whole

stallion thing, the whole sales world turns me off.

But if, you know, if he's grade one, if he's a Derby one, it's

grade one placed on turf. I, I would, I would be, you

know, so if he runs third or second or wins, like I would

sure that'd be a good feather in his cap for, for his resume.

And you know, also if you run third, you make $100,000, which,

you know, isn't bad. So I, I, I like it.

I just think Kenny is such a sporting trainer and and the

owners, the gas was they were here last week with the horse of

theirs. So maybe I, I again, I don't

know their connections, but I mean, the fact that they were

out here and they're coming back this week, I think is really,

really cool for us and in Virginia and for for their

horse. But I just I love trainers that

run their horses and we've seen a lot of Derby winners that went

off form. They get retired really, really

quick and Mystic Dan went off form.

He had three real clunkers in a row and all of a sudden comes

back and now he's kind of back in form again.

And I think they're being rewarded for that.

I think it's a really outstanding, I don't know, I've

become a big Candy Mcpeak fan last year, just kind of how he

handled all that with Torpedo Anna and and Mystic Dan.

And he runs his horses and he's, you know, and he's just good

about it. You know when?

When the way Lucas passed away, I was concerned in my mind that

we would lose that that breed of trainer that instead of training

into shape to run, they they ran their horses and Kenny's got

that out West. We've got Doug O'Neill just you

know, yeah, we'll try the turf today.

You know, I kind of think to it. So maybe those guys at at the

highest levels aren't gone. Jason in our sport and hopefully

there's. A couple of them, yeah.

No, there's, there's a couple of them, but it, it's, I don't

know, it just makes it just makes it more fun for people

when they can kind of follow along.

And, and Kenny knows that like he, I remember when he won the

Derby, I was like, are you kidding me?

Kenny is going to run the Preakness, of course.

And you know, and, and it was great.

The only Preakness I ever got to go to was that one.

What was the silver, silver, whatever?

Obviously it's stuck in my. Family Seize the Grey.

That's the name of that horse. His name, Yeah.

There you go. He wasn't calling it.

So he's Jason Beebe will be on the call.

Am I allowed? Is Grant Sonata coming?

That's the only question I had about the Arlington Million,

because I think that's horse. I think that the United Nations

was a good race. Yeah, I haven't, I haven't heard

one or the other on that. I'm literally like in the

parking lot. So I'm going to, you know, and

I, I was travelling all weekend, so I, I took a little vacation

to get away from horse racing for a couple days before this.

So I'm I'm a tiny bit out of the loop.

We'll let you out of here on this.

You are a baseball. You like to visit the stadiums.

What's the best one you've been to this year?

Yeah. I just went to the PNC Park the

other night. Spectacular.

Pittsburgh. Yeah, it's.

Great. Yeah, yeah, everybody, everybody

says it's like a top three or four, and they're probably

right. Yeah.

Fenway and Camden are still my favorites.

But yeah, the, the the PNC was was outstanding.

And then I went to the nationals last night and the AIDS whooped

and bad. So I was gone by about 6:00.

The National Park is fine. It's perfectly clean.

You know, you can take the metro train and that's always an

adventure. But yeah, so yeah, PNC is for

for this year is. So I think the only ones I've

been to this year is the Steinberg, the minor League One

in Tampa. And then Miami.

I went down for the I have a buddy that works with the

Giants, so whenever they're around, I always go see them.

And so that was why I went to Pittsburgh.

There you go. What did you think of my pizza

that I sent you the photo of the other day?

That that looked good. I mean, I didn't try it.

Try to make these pizzas at all. Try to get into this.

What? Anyway, I got me thinking, does

Pittsburgh have a pizza style Pittsburgh?

Every city, kind of. It's a great question.

Yeah, we waited. We've discussed the Tavern style

here that, you know, the bear nose.

Different things. Pittsburgh.

Yeah. I don't.

Don't they do that one with the cold cheese on top.

Isn't that a Western Pennsylvania thing?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes, you're right, You're

right. You're right.

That's Beto's, I think it's called.

I didn't, I didn't do a whole lot of culinary.

I was only there for about 24 hours or I ate at the ballpark.

But yeah, I think Beto's is the famous cold cheese, which I get

me. I don't know, like I like the

hot, cold dynamic on stuff. I think it's great with

desserts. But man, I don't know.

But yeah, melt my cheese, you know?

It's a pizza. Melt my cheese.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's Jason Beam at BB

Awards on Twitter. We appreciate him joining us

here. Have a great time with the calls

on Saturday. And yeah, hopefully, hopefully

the rain is forecasted the way that it's going to go.

A little rain today, will be dry by Saturday.

That sounds good. All right, Jace, appreciate you

buddy. Talk to you soon all.

Right, see you later. Bye, bye.

There we go. Jason Beam in his car in a

parking lot in Virginia. There you go.

What you know about Virginia parking lots?

Nothing. Nothing.

Zach shaking his head. This.

This infamous Tanner sound next.