Was it the 34 blow out days before, or did Mike Smith just give IMO another horrible ride.
Or maybe he simply got Mullinized.
Problem with this guy is you can\'t always tell where or when. See yesterday\'s results where he waited until the 2nd off the change to pop the winner of the sixth. I miss the good old days of OSB.
I would love to have seen a match race between Shifty Sheik and Choctaw Nation. Or at least their vets...
\"Perfect\" definetly got a patented Mike Smith ride, but to give Smith a break, you just couldn\'t really expect Perfect to run well the first race after his duel in the desert, no matter how impressive his works were -- I\'m amazed that he even came back so soon -- that Dubai trip usually wrecks them for life. Still, that race was awfully cheap for a Graded Stakes, so I don\'t know what to expect for the Pacific classic and beyond. Nation ran tremendous -- to rally from that far back on the Del Mar main track which has been very kind to speed so far -- it just blows my mind. Not unlike Summer Wind Dancer\'s win at Delaware -- Mullins\' runners do amazing things -- anything you ask them to do. I\'ve never seen anything like it.
There was an awful big weight spread between the two, plus positions, plus Mandella is much better second off a layoff and was clearly pointing to the Pacific Classic and BC (unfortunately for those of us affiliated with Even The Score). I used 3 in the race in the pick 6.
This is redboarding but I have to agree with everybody on this one(I guess I should be running for office).
Mullins is incredible.
PP was not fully cranked and at the weights off the bench was vulnerable.
Put the two together and the outcome was not real surprising.
However, I would not necessarily count on the same result in the Pacific Classic.
Chris
Jerry - Very interested to see Choctaw\'s figure for this race. Coming in, his top of 1 was nowhere near competetive with the top older horses tops. Just saw the Beyer guys gave him a 102 for the win. Is his thorograph in that range too or did he make a big jump up to actually become competetive figure wise with the best from the older horses?
And PP\'s race is a bit worriesome. Seems too slow to be true...but maybe it just was a matter of it being a prep. But it sure didn\'t look to be just a \"prep\" the way he was training.
Won\'t be doing the figure for a couple of days, but 10 pounds is worth 2 TG points, so if CN ran a 1... Mandella is decent off layoffs, better the next time, and clearly was not pointing for this race-- in 3 months no one will remember the San Diego Handicap. I would like to think PP is cooked, but I doubt it.