lest there be any further discussion...case closed. Consider \"ship\" a 4 letter word. are the connections the last people on earth to realize this?
This may have been the first time he shipped for a turf race and it was for a $5M purse. They took a shot and lost. He wasn\'t the only horse that bombed in the desert last night.
Instead of criticizing them, perhaps you should give the connections some credit for not playing it safe by staying in Cal. We hear criticicsms all the time of horses retiring prematurely and not seeing them race (yes, I know he\'s a gelding). At least they stepped up, took a chance, and squared off against the best. What more can you ask for??
\"Consider \"ship\" a 4 letter word. are the connections the last people on earth to realize this?\"
I didn\'t think yesterday was the ideal spot for him. I wouldn\'t have chosen that race for him. But if they weren\'t the last ones to realize shipping was an issue, then I was.
In the past, all his ships had an excuse.
He was vanned off of the track in his race prior to coming to NY in 2005 after a very long and hard campaign. I\'ve seen dozens of top horse wear down and fall apart late in the year after having raced at a high level all year long. He gave a clear clue he was done.
He was bad that day in NY, but they sent him overseas anyway where he got destroyed again. To me, sending him overseas at that stage was an obvious error. He was having some problems and needed a rest badly.
In the 2006 BC, he chased a fast pace on the outside (on a GR day) against horses that IMO were better than him. He was also at the end of an extremely tough campaign.
I thought it was reasonable to look at all of those races and not be 100% convinced whether he was bad because of the ship, point of form cycle issues, quality of competition, or some combination of the above.
Yesterday convinced me that shipping (and maybe drugs) are at least part of the problem. He\'s simply not that bad. He never faced the best turfers in America, but he has won Grade 1 turf events that contained good horses and earned figures comparable to his dirt form. He was fresh and fit going over there and from what I read was doing very well. He was too terrible yesterday to think that the ship/drugs weren\'t a factor.
Tough to pass a shot at a $5m purse with a horse who will have limited opportunities in the future.There are many runners who do not perform up to par shipping, off bute(and lasix in this case)
LM is very tough in Cal and a toss elsewhere.
Mike
fkach:
could not agree more with the last sentence -which was what I was watching hard for all morning. it\'s not cheap to travel to Dubai, much less ship a horse over there with all the help,...
PDub - understand your attachment to the CA horses, but my incredulousness (is htat a word?) was over judgement, not giving the horse a chance. If he could win one say...well, anywhere outside CA, I\'ll eat my hard spun hat. And what\'s more, with the few horses that do recover from Dubai...what was the sense?
shanahan Wrote:
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> it\'s not cheap to travel to Dubai, much less ship
> a horse over there with all the help,...
Dubai picks up all expenses, including shipping for all horses entered.
The common denomenator in all LM\'s shipping losses was the lack of Bute.
The horse has tender feet. I can\'t begrudge the connections for one more chance on what might have been a kinder surface for 5 mil, all expenses paid, but at this point, any other foreign experiments would be cruel.
Bob
If they still want to ship (and I don\'t know why they would other than to prove he can), they should take a stab at a race with a big purse outside of CA that tends to draw second string horses. IMO, he\'s not quite up to the best horses in the east to begin with, though I think he has been underrated by many also. I don\'t think winning out there so consistently was just an accident or good fortune.
The race that Super Frolic won two years ago might be a good spot for him if they decide to leave CA again.
Actually, what I\'d like to see is some top eastern horses ship out there and take him on. That CA triple crown series for older horses offers huge purses and prestige. If he comes back from Dubai in top form, I\'d like to see what he can do against a top horse on his home track.
The connections weren\'t the only people who believed in this geldings ability to ship. He was the betting favorite with a few minutes to post at 4/1?? Don\'t know if he ended up the favorite.Talk about false favorites. Finished 16th and last. Where were the head to head betting propositions when you needed them??
I\'m not so skeptical of his California performances as he has put up some excellent figures there, on both grass and dirt.
What I would really like to see is what he would do in California off Bute. That would be the best way to answer the shipping or drugs issue. Don\'t hold your breath on that happening, though.
Bob
Does anyone think that LM\'s Cali #s (pick your figure maker) are bogus, obtained against weak competition and/or with soft paces? Just asking.
I think the reason Lava Man ran last is that Corey Nakatani had him uncharacteristically pressing the pace.
His figures are consistently weaker than you typically see from top notch Grade 1 older horses these days (with 1 or 2 exceptions here or there). I also think the \"quality\" of his competition has been on the weak side for that level of racing.
However, I don\'t think it\'s an accident when one horse dominates like he has. IMO, he\'s better than his figures indicate but not as good as the best horses in the east for the last few years.
Any good East coast horse would beat Lava Man...Who, besides the worst derby winner of all time, has he ever beaten of any significance??
He has beaten everyone he\'s faced in California( you\'re right,not too much). What he rarely does is run fast but he\'s very game.He is fortunate to be running at a time when the west coast handicap division has been very weak.Wish I owned him.
Mike
O\'neil had other plans for LAVA.
The owners wanted the glory even tho the trainer had mapped out a schedule that didn\'t include Dubai.Now they must pay for their actions,hoping he returns to his previous form in a diligent time frame. Good luck to all concerned.
Shanny,
Yes, as a left coaster I tend to back my \"own\". Your points were certainly not without merit.
Yes, incredulous is a word.
As Fkach pointed out, there were some other things that one could point to as reasons for past shipping failures. But since there is a pattern to his poor efforts (i.e. every time he ships) it looks like its tough to make that point an ymore. Lets hope he returns sound and get back his form when he races in Cal again.
Lost Cause Wrote:
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> Any good East coast horse would beat Lava
> Man...Who, besides the worst derby winner of all
> time, has he ever beaten of any significance??
If its that easy to beat him, then why don\'t these horses come out to California to do just that?? Or is a $1M purse in races with as much prestige as the Big Cap or Hollywood Gold Cup not good enough??
>I think the reason Lava Man ran last is that Corey Nakatani had him uncharacteristically pressing the pace.<
Barry,
I\'m not sure what that means. He\'s won on the lead and from just off the pace in the past.
Unless that pace was very fast (it was hard for me to tell visually), he should have hung around better than that if he was on his \"A\" game. Personally, I thought racing on turf in Dubai was a mistake, but I think he would have done better against those same horses if the race was in CA. He probably would have lost anyway, but it would have been closer.
Team Valor ran a 6yo So African mare named Irridescence in the Duty Free.
She spent the first 6 furlongs on the lead looking left at the automobile with the mobile camera. She was pressed every step of the way by Lava Man.
Irridescence ran unquestionably the worst race of her life, yet she beat the three American representatives.
From this one must conclude that American grass form ain\'t much.
So does this mean that if Lava dude repeats last years record or anywhere close to it that they should skip the trip to NJ this fall?
They\'ll probably still make the trip because of the money involved but the result will be the same...another outside of CA loss..
Lost Cause Wrote:
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> They\'ll probably still make the trip because of
> the money involved but the result will be the
> same...another outside of CA loss..
According to O\'Neill you\'ll not see him at the Breeders\' Cup this year:
\"I thought for sure Lava Man bled, but he scoped clean and walked sound,\" O\'Neill said.
The loss, Lava Man\'s fifth defeat outside of California in the last 18 months, has left O\'Neill convinced that the 6-year-old gelding should race exclusively in California.
\"We\'ll never leave California again,\" O\'Neill said. \"It\'s obvious there is a link.\"