Friday August 4th the beginning of a weekend that I\'m guessing will draw more than a couple TGenerates. In the feature race, the $200K National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes, two are entered which might be prejudiced against.
I just wanted to put them on the radar screen before any subconscious thoughts cause them to become invisible in the exhilaration of arriving upstate Friday. They finished a head apart in their last meeting (The $1.2M Belmont Derby) with contrasting trips.
The first, is the Japanese bred, Bill Mott trained beaten 3/1 favorite Yoshida who just couldn\'t stay with Oscar Performance who ran a 1+1/4 miles in 2:00.25. with fractions of 23.96, 25.52, 24.89, 22.98, 22.90,
The second horse 83/1 Markarios trained by Nick Zito ran Okay making a point of losing ground most of the way before angling 7w for the all important stretch run.
Oh and Arklow the 2nd choice in the Belmont race who got tired at the half way point and finished last is returning also.
My points - a Japanese bred slug, Nick Zito doesn\'t win Stakes races anymore, Arklow could have been big money Mikey\'s first in a series of unexpected July belly flops.
The astute players here won\'t fail to notice that Oscar Performance is a very good one, The two euros were somewhat under estimated (again) @ BEL and Good Samaritan saved ground under Rosario but you can only make up so much ground when those in front of you are finishing with :23 final quarters.
Maybe the crowd will settle on a couple or three of the other entrants whose last race was a win or a second. But I\'m looking forward to my most recent hopeful from Japan and underdog Mr. Z. Hopefully someone else can ring in about Arklow? I\'m going to be on the watch for Ken Sweezey(?) first time starters.
Maybe FrankD will ring in, I\'d welcome that.
I think Frank was scared away by the non-Thorograph related posts.