What a surprise on both accounts.....
Another horse, showing signs of being very good, has an injury and will be retired to stud.
http://www.drf.com/news/article/66299.html
And, roman ruler, in what MIGHT have been an interesting race against Commentator and Secret Run, is scratched this morning. Who knows why? Maybe another injury and early retirement? (Oh by the way, Secret Run also scratched, so Commentator jogged at 1 to 5).
This game is getting worse and worse.
When does football season start......
I think Roman Ruler may go in the Dwyer.
So is Commentator now the new fastest horse of all time? :)
That race can\'t be too far off. The Beyer is probably going to be in the mid 120s.
He is running in the Dwyer per TVG, Baffert decided after a great workout with a stablemate.
xichibanx
Yeah, they couldn\'t run the damn horse in a GI? We\'re selling a SW Graph Racing mare in foal to Distorted Humor in November.
Commentator - One path all the way and carried 114. I bet it\'s not even a negative number. HP
HP-- You\'re on drugs. Good thing you don\'t make the numbers. He ran 3 seconds faster than the winner of the first, who has real figures.
It was an amazing display even if the field was weak and he was able shake loose easily. I didn\'t like him much in the Hal\'s Hope when he got beat (lots of quality speed in the race), but maybe something happened to him that I didn\'t read about and he didn\'t get a chance to show his best at that time.
I love when horses like this run spectacularly fast races because it gets my hopes up that we are seeing the blossiming of a new champion, but when it\'s first off a layoff and the trainer is Nicky Z, it tends to temper my enthusiam because I can\'t help but expect him to screw it up. (if he didn\'t already by bringing him back so sharp).
Was it in this lifetime that a horse named Bellamy Road ran a similarly impressive race?
TGJB,
Good thing.
HP
But I bet the track variant will be hell to figure on this day for TGJB.
Good luck with this one.
NC-Tony
Who?
NC Tony
One things for certain, D. Wayne never would have wasted a performance like that in an OC/Alw race.
Commentator, to refresh the memory banks, 4yo by Distorted Humor 7-6-0-0 the average margin of victory in his six romps, just a shade under 10 lengths. Chuckles favorite jock, Channing Hill was aboard for this latest romp. LOL
Deathcomm\'s only loss at two turns at GP. If memory serves, Uncle Nicky said he\'d never see a two turn race again.
Oddly enough, he just missed Pletcher\'s Left Bank track record by a click.
BC Sprint winner.
bdhsheets Wrote:
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Chuckles favorite jock, Channing Hill
> was aboard for this latest romp. LOL
>
>
> BC Sprint winner.
Channing Hill gave Commentator the patented \"Screaming Monkey Ride\". Thats where the horse so lays over his competition all the jock has to do is stay in the irons, shout and flail like mad and the horse is a guaranteed winner. In other words I had that race. Even Zito said he was overzealous.
However Channing Hill\'s numbers have become very marginal. You need more than a 20 dollar mutual to break even on his stats, so if he goes off at 11-1 or more I can understand a flyer on him. I don\'t use him if other horses have even have a remote chance however. The raw time looked good to me, but it was surrounded by changing track conditions and so much turf racing you have to wonder about the track. Gut feeling is that it wasn\'t exceptional.
Channing Hill 205 18 29 24 win: 8.78 money: 34.63
I\'m sure he\'s a nice guy, but this game is tough and he\'ll need to find other work shortly.
Too bad about Eddington. I think they could have brought him back from that injury, but I\'m not sure that Pimlico mud romp got him into whats left of the elite.
TGJB Wrote:
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> HP-- You\'re on drugs. Good thing you don\'t make
> the numbers. He ran 3 seconds faster than the
> winner of the first, who has real figures.
That first race involved 17.5 claimers. Back numbers considered, they ran fractions of:
23.26, 46.42, 1:10.99, 1:23.50
The Commentator race went:
22.38, 44.77, 1:08.16, 1:20.23
Whats really interesting is that the top (3) in the Commentator race all thrashed the first two fractional times of the back number platers and the second place horse ran faster than them all. Granted Commentator did extend away much like Bellamania. But what of that track? For one race at least it was lightning.
Beyer gave the race a 121 and if anything that seems light to me. This is a Zito horse though. He has no idea at all how good this horse is and even if he did there\'s very little chance anyone (especially him) has any idea how he will run next time.
Chuckles,
You are chiming in again on figures that you don\'t know, use or seem to understand.
Northwest Hill came into the first race off of three straight \"4\'s\". I have no idea what he ran that day, but he seemed to run his race. In any case, I can\'t imagine he ran much faster or slower than that.
1 hour later, Commentator ran the same distance over 3 seconds faster.
You couldn\'t ask for a better chance to get a handle on the Commentator race than to have a race run at the same distance, about an hour earlier, with a horse in the race who is running consistent figures and who ran his race.
I have no idea what the figure for Commentator will be, but it certainly isn\'t the \"0\" that HP suggested and for you to come to the conclusion that for that one race, the track became lightning quick suddenly, is just off base again.
It is pretty obvious you don\'t use the T-Graph product, which is your prerogative, but then why post about the figures T-Graph assigns? I don\'t get it.
Jerry, have you done the commentator figure yet? Significantly faster than a \"0\"?
I haven\'t done the figure yet, and don\'t know whether anything like rain showers or sealing/unsealing came into play. But while Beyer isn\'t accurate to a tight degree and they have some circuit to circuit problems (less than before), they seldom make big mistakes-- he\'s a pragmatist, where Ragozin is a fundamentalist. The 121 means he ran something in the GZ/Bellamy Road area.
Hopefully this won\'t cook the horse, since I have both financial and rooting interests in the success of Distorted Humor. If I were managing him (anybody listening?), I would give him lots of time, and run him next in a GI. We know he runs well fresh.
I will also add that for whatever reason, there have been a number of Zito horses over the last few years that were one and done, unless given lots of rest (Birdstone). He completely changed his training style to become something of a layoff trainer, and he needs to change his management style to go with it.
My point is that the number on that day is going to be inherently questionable, no matter what figure is assigned. The reasons are the reasons TGJB mentioned. The track was a huge variable. Remember how quickly that track changed on Belmont day? They are live and breath at times.
Zito is clearly handling Commentator with kid gloves, something troubles him about the hourse and thats something to consider in trying to figure the race, at least in my opinion. Distorted Humor is a horse that was fast and he\'s gotten some fast ones. Commentator is quick but regardless of how you score that Optional Claiming race we\'ve already seen him come unglued under the pressure of real horses. The race I wanna see is a match race: Commentator vs. Bellamania. Who caves first? regardless of quick track, back figures.
\"If I were managing him (anybody listening?), I would give him lots of time, and run him next in a GI. We know he runs well fresh. \"
They all run well fresh when they\'re 1-5 and lay over their competition. :)
I think the Forego is a Grade 1. That might be a decent spot, but I\'m not sure of the date. I wouldn\'t want to go into a Grade 1 off a layoff of more than 2 months though. Horses rarely win Grade 1 races off a layoff of more than 2 months unless they are clearly better than the competition. That\'s pretty rare.
Even if they freshen him up a bit, I wouldn\'t bet on this horse duplicating that figure against Grade 1 horses. As well as he ran the other day, it doesn\'t get too much easier than that trip. He won\'t have it that easy against Forest Danger or horses like that.
CTC,
I don\'t know if there was anything done to the track between the first and second race. It did change later in the day because of some rain. Either way, the horses that finished behind him have some decent figures and it appears they ran fairly consistent with their normal level. Based on those numbers I had projected a Beyer of 124 (Beyer made it a 121) and that was fairly consistent with the first race. Either way it was really fast. There\'s little doubt about that. It\'s just a matter of what exact figure you assign. This wasn\'t a day like Wood Memorial day where there wasn\'t much to work with in the feature race.
The track was under a lot of maintenance and the turf was good so there was recent significant water. I didn\'t notice rain early, but the time and fractional times and the number of horses on them make it quizzical. I think it was a good race. It was what, less than a click from the track record? I just dont think he ran as fast as he has been and is gonna be scored. When he lines up in a Grade I with the better horses a 7 mark one timer shouldn\'t scare anyone, pretty much conceding its going to be scored very fast.
Also its a shame about Oratory. That Peter Pan looked to be a big race and when he skipped the Belmont you had to think they were doing the right thing by the horse. Now this, what rotten luck for the connections. He seemed to have potential.