Supertests 1 - Supertrainers 0
Cheers.
Chris
Did the tests run the 45 half and 1:08 six furlongs?
More like horses that like racing off fast paces that want 10F and that are prepared properly +1 - horses with fast speed figures 0.
This race was a strange one. It may be the four Negative number horses all bounced. With Alex bouncing least on foundation. 2:02:75 was slow on that track.
Bouncing had nothing to do with this result.
Check the results of all the graded races run at CD this weekend. Not just the Derby.
Chris
Pace was a factor...reviewing the chart might say more. Alex may have bounced. Bellamania may have met a pace scenario he foreseeably couldnt handle.
Bandini washed out pre race.
Greeley\'s may have been pace and distance limitation. He hadn\'t worked great pre race.
Tenative theory is bounce played an enormous role.
Testing hasn\'t stopped them prior to this race. Unless they\'ve developed a test for precisely what they\'ve been juicing with you have to be skeptical.
Giacomo didnt\' qualify on dosage...lol
Post Edited (05-07-05 19:13)
I assumed that was what you meant, & I couldn\'t agree more, although I have to admit that it would have been nice if just one of the supertrainers we had in pk4s paying from $20k to $100k would have been able to use his juice just one more time. It appears that you\'re taking it a lot better than I am, which is to your credit. If I was the poster who liked CA & didn\'t cash, as happened to me with a 50-1 shot in the 5th, that might not be possible, even for you. Very tough game, juice or not.
Chris-- yeah. Alan and I started talking about it Friday, and by Sat it was pretty clear with TP (as it was last Travers day), the question was who else. I have gotten behind on doing days with all the Derby stuff so I haven\'t seen what\'s going on at Belmont, but I do know favorites have been doing much worse since the detention barn started.
The bad news is that Allday et al will end up playing golf in Florida instead of doing time. The good news is that this could be the beginning of several good things happeneing to the game over the next year or two. FYI, Scott Waterman, who is behind the KY testing, is one of the people I talked to trying to do something about this crap. In his case, he was way ahead of me-- he knew everything before I told him, including every vet and trainer I mentioned.
CH-- pace may very well have been a factor for some, it was hot. But that ain\'t the big story-- not all the name horses that didn\'t fire were on or near the lead. Pletcher will be less Godlike going forward in certain jurisdictions, is my guess.
Meanwhile, anybody catch Donna Brothers reporting that AA had been taking to another stall to be hosed down?
I\'ll take a look at the other results this week.
I thought it was fairly obvious that everyone near the pace was severely compromised. Many of the other horses they sent out had serious question marks about distance or lacked ability/recent form.
IMO Bellamy Road and High Fly both ran fairly well considering their trips. Plus both had question marks coming in related to distance, pace, rateability etc...
I thought High Limit was probably more likely to finish last than first given this pace scenario and his being exposed in the BG (I thought he\'d beat Spanish Chestnut and Going Wild).
Andromeda Hero was a very slow horse.
Coin Silver and Flower Ally were second stringers that haven\'t exactly looked like Stymie in the stretch of shorter races.
I liked Bandini, but he was so dreadful I can\'t believe juice had anyhing to do with his performance. He was just too horrible.
I liked Greely\'s Galaxy, but let\'s face it, he had only 4 lifetime starts, 2 route preps and he beat 3rd stringers when he ran fast. So he was highly vulnerable to a bad performance and I said so prior.
I\'ll check the rest of week\'s results like you suggest, but as bad as the drug problem is these days, IMO it would really be stretching things to blame this mess of a race on drug testing.
This is what happens in 20 horse fields when the pace is hot and you find out that a lot of horses don\'t want 10F or weren\'t seasoned enough for such a demanding race.
Logical people tear up tickets.
Post Edited (05-07-05 19:44)
Mall,
I thought in mid stretch that we were going to hit a big pick 4 just like we did last year on Derby day but it was just not to be this time around. Next year...
Chris
so, did every horse bounce in this race, I mean we have to assume some ran their best races, like afleet alex, right. projection theory?
how did the other two turn races grade out today so we have a solid varient?
Alex in all likelihood bounced.
Andromedas hero could have run around the track twice more on Ark day and with each lap he\'d of lost more ground to Alex. He cut into Alex\'s margin this time. I\'ll defer to TGraph, but Alex had to regress.
He lost ground to Flower Alley as well. Alex went back.
a druggie on cold turkey...didn\'t have his \"juice today\"? He was sooooo bad the whole race, looked horrible pre-race...did he have the shakes too?
I caught a glimpse of him in the post parade and saw the shine. Misidentified it as a health coat. They say he was wet. Loss of the juice didnt wash him out. He left his race on the walkup....freaked out. I a slew of bets hooked on him. If he won, I still lose.
Bandini had a 7 point top per TGraph. That probably was a factor. Last time I dont factor the big negative top with greater respect.
I just remembered why I quit gambling 5 years ago. Damn, my head hurts..........
I\'m trying to understand the thread of this conversation, but if I\'m not mistaken, are you saying the results of this farce of a Derby are due to drugging scrutiny? This needs fixing! (pardon the pun).
\"Meanwhile, anybody catch Donna Brothers reporting that AA had been taking to another stall to be hosed down?\"
TGJB
I watched a replay of the entire show last night and about 60 minutes prior to post time, yes, Brothers said this \"I\'m standing outside the barn of Afleet Alex who\'s not here right now. He\'s over at another barn getting his pre-race bath.\"
Buck: I don\'t think she said \"another barn\". I\'m pretty sure it was \"another stall\".
Re Afleet Alex,
Another barn or another stall,so what? Oh, I get it, that\'s when they juiced him with the whole world all around the place.Juice is just another excuse for the dogma file.
dont you think the threat of testing was a factor? the last thing a high profile trainer needs is his horse testing positive and getting tossed out of the winners circle. news at 10, zitos horses run 1-5 ,but all failed their tests.purse money refunded and the derby will be rerun......
Theres a theory here that the new Graded Stakes supertest played a role in the results. I don\'t know with certainty when it was implemented. Gathered from threads probably during the Turfway Park meet. However they ran Keeneland with the Supertrainers doing their thing, so I dont understand the implication.
I think Bounce played a large role. I think the Apocalypse horses all bounced. Once you got by them there were quite a few that could move up. The other issue was pace. It took out horses like High Fly and High Limit, though high limit didnt seem to pick up a foot.
Others were just plain overated and had little chance but for respect of their conditioners, Noble Causeway and Sun King for instance.
A great score for those that played the negative bounce angle.
The Derby and Mall team here, appear to have factored the bounce fairly astutely. They went for Wilko and Closing Argument on their ticket. Not sure how deep they were but it sounds deep.
Bounce and Pace was the story of the race. If a handicapper was astute enough to figure bounce and a blinding pace Giacomo and Wilko were the most logical. Unfortunately I was not that clever.
You\'ll appreciate this. After the derby disappointment, I was still in the hunt to qualify for the Am Tab Championship my wife has qualifed for twice, assuming I could come up with a 9-1 shot in the nightcap at CD. When Chippewa opened a daylight lead in the stretch, his losing a 3-way head bob on the line was the only appropriate way for the day to end.
Others who spent many hrs handicapping, betting & carefully observing CD races over the last few days may feel differently, but there is no need for anyone who wasn\'t doing that to check any results on my account. In the silver lining dept, one of the good things going fwd that JB didn\'t mention is how it could affect handicapping. If things are reasonably clean going fwd, maybe we can make back what we lost on the derby before the end of the year.
Mall
I also had Chippewa Trail & I had him with the eventual winner. At the 8th pole I thought it was just a question of whether I would have the winner, both the winner & the exacta, or just the exacta. I didn\'t think losing was even on the menu.
That CD stretch sure is loooong.
Not sure of this...but it might have been rougher inside too. will look at that later.
CTC,
I agree with you that several of really fast horses coming in didn\'t duplicate their recent efforts, but personally I hate the use of the term \"bounce\".
I think you have to seperate out horses that may have reacted to the strains of their prior effort (a bounce) from those that were simply overrated or questionable as to their ability to duplicate their fast race for other reasons.
All IMHO:
Bellamy Road - There is a huge difference between getting loose on the lead at 9F against Grade 3 horses on a track that is tilted towards speed and getting hung wide in a fast pace at 10F in a 20 horse field with Grade 1 horses taking pot shots at you from everywhere. This horse had never been tested under conditions even remotely similar to this. Plus, even if you want to give him credit for running exceptionally well despite very favorable conditions in the Wood (which I did), it was still very unlikely for him to duplicate it.
Greely\'s Galaxy - He earned his fast figure in only his 4th start, 2nd route, and against 3rd string horses. I gave him a decent shot to win and even bet him in the race at 20-1, but this horse really fit the profile of a horse not prepared properly for the Derby in terms of seasoning, foundation, etc... IMO, he was clearly more likely to go backwards than several of the other contenders.
Bandini - Ran so horribly I don\'t know what to make of it. Even if it was \"juice off\" that doesn\'t account for this horrible a performance. Keep in mind that most people that didn\'t like him felt that way because they thought the BG was too slow, not because they thought it was too fast. Personally, I thought it almost had to faster than Beyer made it, but maybe not. He had 3 weeks off and I think this is just one of those \"clinkers\" that shows up from time to time. Maybe something is wrong with him, but personally I don\'t think the BG knocked him out.
Afleet Alex - Ran well. I don\'t what kind of figure he will get, but even if it\'s not quite as fast at the Arkansas Derby this was a much tougher field and it was 10F. He more or less ran as well as I expected.