I love the way this race drew. FFC will be stalked by HS and SS has to go 3 wide into the first turn or take back and go to the rail.
With Alan Garcia (Mint Slewlep) in the one hole Calvin will be battling with a fellow competent notorious rail rider. No way AG ever lets Borel through.
MO,
Think SS will surely drop down near the fence rather than vie wide into the first turn.
Mike
Hard Spun clearly got the worst of the draw. Tons of early speed to his inside.
He will be wide the entire trip.
The Table is already set for the Derby Champ to gobble this bunch of turkeys up one more time.
TONS???? Are we looking at the same PPs?
Please Mo all of the money you won on Street Sense in the Derby put it to a good cause instead of throwing it all away trying to beat SS in the Preakness.
http://www.charitynavigator.org/?gclid=CIyMkO7kk4wCFRTTgAodUX_adg
At least two horses to his inside beat him into the first turn. Maybe three
http://www.drf.com/tc/preakness/2007/pps/preakness_pps_basic.pdf
Flying First Class on the lead with Hard Spun stalking in the two path.
Dominguez will tuck Xchanger back into third on the rail(the Scrappy T trip)
The only way Dominguez goes on the engine is a bad break out of the gate by FFC.
The rest don\'t have the early quicks to get involved.
I see no reason for Hard Spun to go for the lead. I think his work prior to the Derby where he went 22 44+ is the reason he was on the lead in the Derby setting too quick a 4F pace. I don\'t see that happening again unless for some reason the pace is not that quick.
I would like to know why he hasn\'t breezed since the Derby though. Both Curlin and SS made it back to the track.
If you say so......
Tend to agree you\'ve identified the quick steppers.
Flying First Class has Big League Speed. That Derby Trial was a scorcher, though he did appear to tire a bit in the lane. Theres really no telling if this horse wants to go a distance of ground. He ran a huge 6 pole figure and then appears to have taken some time to recover/mature, but his last certainly looks to be a very positive step forward even if he hasn\'t fired a good race vs. the A Team. The Coach is talking \"reserved smack\". He hasn\'t done much since Commendable\'s lucky trip but he is the Da Coach and probably has forgotten more than Kid Pletcher will ever know.
To my eye, Hard Spun looks fast enough to pull past Xchanger and settle near the rail to bide his time. Making the pace didn\'t earn him the Crown last, so I tend to think they\'ll rate and finish with more energy this trip. All things considered thought he finished with good energy last.
Xchanger is a tough read. He did appear to come alive at Pimlico last, but it was against a much less accomplished bunch of horses and has to pick up minus 4 lengths. Still, he ran on the pace and put a surge in at a time in the race when he had been fading. Dominguez doesn\'t appear to hurt either.
18741 Wrote:
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> Flying First Class on the lead with Hard Spun
> stalking in the two path.
>
> Dominguez will tuck Xchanger back into third on
> the rail(the Scrappy T trip)
>
> The only way Dominguez goes on the engine is a bad
> break out of the gate by FFC.
>
> The rest don\'t have the early quicks to get
> involved.
Flying First Class seems to have bounced back nicely out of the Derby Trial.
http://www.drf.com/workouts/08/wCD08.html
Nothing else working 5f\'s cracked a minute that day.
Maybe he gets brave on the lead stretching back out.
Big, I\'ve done a cursory review of his pedigree and its not half bad. The sire accomplished nothing, but is a full to a horse named \"Performing Magic\" who was a winner of 700K plus and twice at 9 poles in graded company.
http://www.pedigreequery.com/performing+magic
Female side is sneaky with some very sound stakes winning offspring.
I can\'t recall Lukas winning a big race with such lite foundation however. This horse is even more of an enigma.
The beauty of beating Pletcher, even at higher odds, is that his horses are invariably tied up in the exotics by the \"faithful.\"
big18741 Wrote:
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> Flying First Class seems to have bounced back
> nicely out of the Derby Trial.
>
> http://www.drf.com/workouts/08/wCD08.html
>
> Nothing else working 5f\'s cracked a minute that
> day.
>
>
> Maybe he gets brave on the lead stretching back
> out.
Chuckles_the_Clown2 Wrote:
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> To my eye, Hard Spun looks fast enough to pull
> past Xchanger and settle near the rail to bide his
> time. Making the pace didn\'t earn him the Crown
> last, so I tend to think they\'ll rate and finish
> with more energy this trip. All things considered
> thought he finished with good energy last.
>
I agree that rating would be the way to go for Hard Spun. However, it seems that Pina gets fooled into think his horse is not going fast because he pricks his ears. That's why he worked so fast and that's why he went so fast early in the Derby. He ran great there but could have run even better, as you noted, had Pino rated him a bit, however he said after the race that he wasn't going fast because of the ears. It's just an idiosyncrasy of the horse and even if it does mean he's relaxed, he's still burning glycogen.
In the Preakness he faces even more pace pressure, which would not be a problem if not for the fact that Pino is apt to misjudge how fast he's really going.
Bob
Enigma indeed.
A horse with his type of speed should certainly be on the lead going a route.
He\'s been two turns on three occasions but hasn\'t seen the front thru the early fraction.
The Arkansas Derby due to the early troubles-and a shuffle back to sixth.
In the Rebel he went for the lead with Xchanger,but it appears Prado throttles him back into the turn letting Xchanger clear.
Lukas started him out going two turns last September then laid him off five months.He had to have some feel for this horse handling distance to start him out at a mile.