Is it just me, or is this year\'s Classic coming up very weak? Considering no horse with Mr. Prospector blood has won the race in the last ten years (compared with at least five Derby winners over the period), let\'s take a look at the contenders:
Came Home: Prospector horse received 91 and 89 late pace #\'s in his last two mile and a quarter races. The distance will catch up with him this time. (I have already said that three times though)
War Emblem: Prospector horse received 80, 66, 87, and 105 lp #\'s in his last four races beyond nine furlongs. Needs an easy lead to get back to the 105.... won\'t happen.
E Duai: Prospector horse received 110, 78, 90 lp #\'s in his last three starts at a mile and a quarter. Needed a dreadfully slow pace to hit the 110, he won\'t get that again.
Lido Palace: Prospector horse also received a nice lp # (111) in the Suburban, but again, that was not a true gd 1 horse race. His other two lp #\'s at a mile and a quarter were 95 and 99, quite a bit lower than his nine furlong lp #\'s. His best distance is clearly nine furlongs (0 for 4 at ten I think)
Tenpins: Prospector horse, I don\'t have the stats, but I\'m not sure if he is even going.
Pure Prize: Prospector horse looked OK in his last, but the last eighth was awful slow. I don\'t have the lp #, but I imagine it will be well below 100.
Evening Attire: This Prospector horse looks a bit tougher, especially since the last Prospector horse to win the classic (I think, not 100% sure though) was his sire, Black Tie Affair. EA also has nice lp figures across the board, actually getting better as he stretches beyond nine furlongs (up into the 110 range). The horse is especially dangerous given the fact that he can win the big one in the slop. The most dangerous of the Prospector horses, but I have seen this blood take a lot of money over the last ten years, with little success.
Now let\'s look at the non-Prospector horses.
Dollar Bill: Decent lp figures, but not great (usually within a few points of 100). He has Blushing Groom and Alydar blood, which has contributed to a few winners over the last few years, but will need the race to collapse in order to win.
Harlan\'s Holiday: With the Storm Cat blood, and the new speed Pletcher has trained into him, he resembles Cat Thief, the winner of the 99 Classic. I think this horse could pull of the same type of upset on an ultra speed favoring track like the one Cat Thief got in \'99. HH\'s lp #\'s, however, have been awful going beyond nine furlongs, and even hit a new low of 88 in the PA Derby when he ran a bit faster early. This horse does not want the mile and a quarter on a fair surface.
Macho Uno: Half bro to Awsome again, the \'98 winner. Holy Bull ain\'t Deputy Minister as a sire though. Decent lp #\'s (102 in last year\'s classic). Tough call..... for Orseno fans only (ahahahhaha)
MD\'o: Sadler\'s Wells blood has yet to have a winning impact on the Classic, but the Northern Dancer blood is everywhere, and beware, Sakhee only lost this race by a nose last year(out of Thawakib, by Sadler\'s Wells). I think there is some Damascus blood on the dam side, which has played a role in a few of the winners. This horse has decent lp #\'s going the classic distance (around 100), and gets a big name jockey, one of the requirements for winning this race over the last ten years. Has the looks and running style of Tiznow, the winner of the Classic the last two years. Contender. (I think Bailey and McCarron have each won three of the last ten runnings)
Milwaukee Brew: Decent, but not spectacular lp #\'s going ten furlongs (around 100). Sire won the classic long before I was watching this game. I guess this one, like $B, needs the race to collapse in order to win.
Momentum: Northern Dancer blood on the sire side is good enough, although Foolish Pleasure blood has not been involved with any of the classic winners. Lp #\'s in his last two mile and a quarter races just too slow (90&93). In fact, this horse has a curious pattern; at HP he finishes well, everywhere else he struggles at the end. The PC at Dmr looked good visually I guess, but in a 14 horse field he won\'t get a better trip than that, and he will have to run a bit faster down the lane to get up in time.
Repent: I like this horse\'s breeding for a mile and a quarter. Sovereign Dancer blood has not produced a Classic winner yet, but his offspring certainly have the ability to run long. In fact, Repent\'s sire, Louis Quatorze, was flying at the end of the \'96 classic, only needing another 20 or 30 yards to win the thing. Repent had a nice lp # of 105 in the Travers. The question here is class. I say not enough class there, but smarter people could disagree.
\"The Rock\": By Danehill, which immediately screams turf. There is, however, His majesty and Buckpasser blood there. Dam sire is Be My Guest, which also has the sound of turf. But, again, there is plenty of dirt breeding in the third and fourth generations. I don\'t think anybody knows how this horse will handle a mile and a quarter on dirt (if he even comes), but if you think the race is coming up weak this year, not a bad longshot to throw in there.
Summary: Will a horse with Mr. Prospector blood break the ten year drought? If the answer to that question is yes, I think Evening Attire has the best chance. If the answer is no, I think the focus has to be on M\'Do, for the reasons mentioned above. Rock of Gibralter might be dangerous, and the horse to go with in case of a total collapse is $Bill................ Early Rankings: 1. M\'Do 2. Evening Attire 3. Dollar Bill 4. The Rock 5. Macho Uno
Anybody else have an early top 5 out there?
(lp figures from Brisnet)
Michael,
Why do you use LP from a 10f race to assess a horse\'s chances at 10f? In other words, how does a late fraction from a 10f race tell you more about his 10f ability than his entire 10f performance (including final time) does?
Separately, I thought your keep-in-the-clear post Sunday was quite good. Saving ground is important, and having ground loss in the figures is invaluable, but other things matter too. If we accept that pace matters, we must also accept that saving ground behind horses can put riders in positions where they are at the mercy of the horses in front of them. This can lead to energy-wasting trips. It can also lead to being seventh on the rail behind fractions that are so slow that it\'s much better to be 3w on the lead, which is not to say that being 3w on the lead isn\'t two lengths worse per turn than being 1w on the lead.
Alydar,
momentum vs ground loss...... you can say what you want about Bailey, but the reason why the guy became one of the top two or three jockeys ever was because he understood that saving ground was important, but he also knew that in order to win the big one, your horse better have the chance to run fast for a good part of the race (which means not stuck in behind other horses). Sounds simplistic, and even a bit stupid, but it\'s the truth....... as for the late pace #\'s, it\'s an interesting topic that needs some time..... check out the board tomorrow.
Both Harlans Holiday and Repent got back to tops prior to Sundays race. Both backed up, repent more than HH, both have nice patterns?
Rich,
$40 claimers and 2yr-old maidens were running six panels in 1:08 and change last Saturday. HH set fractions of 24.3 and 48.3, while running on what looked to be a decent rail. Getting caught by a five wide Nothing Flat was a horrible performance. I imagine he will have to pick it up by about ten lengths in order to be competitive in the Classic.
As for Repent...... hmmmmm ..... the smarter guys will have to give you opinions on sheet patterns, he just looks plain inconsistent to me, so demand a price.
Alydar,
The last ten winners of the Classic (aside from Cat Thief, aided by the GP strip) have had an enormous amount of stamina. Winners like Tiznow, Cigar, Alphabet Soup, Concern, and AP Indy all showed a ton of heart down the stretch in their previous races. It is tough to say why the Mr. Prospector speed types have faded down the stretch in the Classic (while winning more than half of the Derby runnings over the same period), but the results are enough to scare me away from the horses who have shown a tendency to slow down late in their races. With three speed types expected to run (all well rested, all saddled with aggressive jocks), I expect a decent pace, and I will focus on the horses who can stalk and finish well. As of now, the horse who I think has the best chance of stalking close to or on a strong pace, and still finishing well is MD\'o. The horses I like stalking off the pace and finishing strong are possibly Macho Uno, Evening Attire, and maybe one of the foreign horses. If A horse like Harlan\'s Holiday or War Emblem wins (ie. the horses who have struggled at the end of their longer races) I will lose. No rocket science here, just a theory that will be proven right or wrong on the 26th.
Michael,
If you write \"WTC\" one more time, I\'m going to terminate our relationship.
Horse A: 22.60 45.80 110.00 200.00
Horse B: 24.00 48.00 112.00 200.20
Horse A won this BC prep by one length. You are using the evidence of his win at a mile and one quarter to show that he had less stamina than the loser. You are also making something like a track profile, but the BC is run at different tracks from year to year. So it\'s more like a race profile. But you tossed Cat Thief\'s win because you thought the track was biased. So now you\'re down to nine races. You could use the Derby, but that evidence contradicts the evidence you want to use. The law of small numbers, Michael.