Anybody who just saw Grasshopper wait, split, accelerate and draw off knows this is going to be one serious race horse this year.
Albarado is well mounted this year in the Handicap Division I\'d say:-)
I thought Baffert\'s 3yo filly ran huge. I tried to beat her but she earned every dime running a little wide and breaking from the outside. As for Pyro, damn! Like an express train. Daytona should have been a hunch play...
That almost reminded me of the \"immaculate recovery\" in the Belmont a few years back ... where\'s the limit on ability for a horse like this ...
If you\'re thinking of Afleet Alex, that was in the Preakness and Grasshopper may be a nice horse but the athleticism isn\'t comparable.
I\'d also be real careful with a belief that Grasshopper is going to be especially effective at distances, considering the odds he\'s pulling and do doubt there\'s a trip to Dubai in his future.
I have to say one other thing. I\'ve been critical of Pulpit\'s in the past, but Pyro does give the impression that he wants to go on. That said, Indian Blessing would have beaten him up and taken his lunch money in that race.
marcus Wrote:
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> That almost reminded me of the \"immaculate
> recovery\" in the Belmont a few years back ... Been
> going over my neg #\'s studies all week in
> conjuncture with the \'07 BC final #\'s file Alan
> put up recently and after seeing that today - I\'m
> beginning to wonder where\'s the ceiling on ability
> for a horse like this ...
your right - it was \"The Great\" AFleet Alex - i was getting carried away after the race ...
Grasshopper has the right people handling him also. He will go to the right places and run in the right races.
If we suddenly see some early retirement news from the Curlin Camp later this spring or summer there could be a reason why.
Anybody have any logic as to why Gasmussen skipped this logical prep to go straight to Dubia and run a Mile and a Quarter off the layoff.
Last time I remember this occuring was with Charlie Whittingham and Greinton in the Big Cap.
Gasmussen aint no Charlie Whittingham............
SC
From what I\'ve read over the weekend, is that ASSMUSSEN claims that Curlin runs best efforts 2x on a new racing surface. So they would like to give him one over that surface. They (NAD) also seem to have rewrote a race condition so that Curlin could fit.
NC Tony
I\'m very much looking forward to seeing Premium Tap emerge from Saudi Arabia. He was one talented and progressive animal, I hope they have him 100%.
Tony,
Was not aware that he was going over there to run in a prep which might explain why Gasmussen decided to duck Grasshopper.
Gasmussen better make sure the horse is plenty clean. Sure wouldn\'t want another Brass Hat.
And this is one jurisdiction where they will test you.........
Wow, I didn\'t even realize that Premium Tap was still active. After his great start last year he vanished and I assumed he was hurt and retired.
Silver,
Do you really think they are duckin Gashopper?...He couldn\'t even handle Street Sense, who was no better than the third best 3YO.
Silver Charm Wrote:
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> Tony,
>
> Was not aware that he was going over there to run
> in a prep which might explain why Gasmussen
> decided to duck Grasshopper.
>
> Gasmussen better make sure the horse is plenty
> clean. Sure wouldn\'t want another Brass Hat.
>
> And this is one jurisdiction where they will test
> you.........
fkach Wrote:
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> Wow, I didn\'t even realize that Premium Tap was
> still active. After his great start last year he
> vanished and I assumed he was hurt and retired.
He has been running great in Saudi Arabia where he is now known as Allam. Desormeaux has been riding him there and they have articles about his races at NTRA.com.
Forget Grasshopper for now...Curlin better keep his mind on Asiatic Boy In Dubai...When Asiatic Boy hits dirt he transforms into something special.
Curlin is like the neighborhood bully. He can do what he wants when he wants. See his maiden win at Gulfstream and the Preakness. This was not exactly textbook professional racing and yet it did not matter.
Curlin couldn\'t do the kind of professional racing Grasshopper performed on Saturday and yet someone else could argue, he doesn\'t have to.
For Curlin to have beaten Grasshopper last Saturday Gasmussen would have to have broken out the \"really good sh!t\".
Its early and he didn\'t want to. He would rather face six or seven camels while prepping in Dubai.
Mentioning Asiatic Boy in the same breath as Curlin is comical.
What has Asiatic Boy ever done? Whenever he runs against good horses he gets drilled.
Why Comical??
Have you looked at the DIRT races that Asiatic Boy has run in Dubai???...Dominant is the only word to describe them...Throw out the Turf races he ran.
Curlin has to ship to Dubai and race without any drugs on an unfamiliar surface against a horse who loves the surface and has ability.
I think Curlin is a very good horse and I am no fan of Dubai horses when it comes to class, but I won\'t play Curlin in that race with all of the factors against him, I actually like Premium Tap more than him also since that one ran a good race against Invasor on this track last year and IMHO Invasor would have killed Curlin at any track. But that\'s just my opinion.
Its comical because Asiatic Boy has never beat anything. The races he ran in ARG were bad races. Joe Louis has proven to be a mediocre horse. Husson although he hasnt raced since May of 07 was a nice enough horse but he beat Asiatic boy each time they ran. Traffic Guard who ran second to Asiatic Boy in both starts is a complete zero. We know the English horses can run, and they drummed him. So what has he ever beat besides Diabolical who fell down at the break? The answer is nothing, and thats a big issue when you are talking about facing some of the horses hes going to line up with WCD
I\'m not real concerned about Gashopper yet. He\'s gonna have to meet the best and go off at decent odds to pique my interest.
Regarding Asiatic Boy, I\'m not looking at figures, but he is a very lightly raced horse for a 5YO. He\'s averaging about 2.5 races a year. That tends to indicate he\'s had some issues. If he hasn\'t been 100% in some of his races that could explain off races and an X-O pattern. That said, he has six wins and two seconds in ten starts. What I like about him is his breeding. Most of the proximate breeding is Argentinia so it\'s hard to get a handle on what those horses produced, but the blood in those proximate branches is very good \"old\" blood.
He\'s certainly got the breeding to be a gamer.
It\'s now or never. He just turned Five.
http://www.pedigreequery.com/asiatic+boy
Lost Cause Wrote:
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> Forget Grasshopper for now...Curlin better keep
> his mind on Asiatic Boy In Dubai...When Asiatic
> Boy hits dirt he transforms into something
> special.
Jerry can you confirm this. If this is true then this would make him faster than Curlin. The Ragozin guys gave him a Negative 2 with trouble.
A negative Rag-2equal to a neg -5 1/2 on TG if they agree,Grass outran the 3yr filly Indian Blessing by .29hundreds and she got a 99 beyer.grasshopper got a beyer of 102 which with weight, no ground loss to speak of,equates to a TG of app zero.Neg 5 1/2 would be a bad joke.Tough to believe Rags gave that fig, must be smokin some strong stuff over there if true.I have serious doubt that TG will see that performance anywhere near -5 1/2.
More interesting is how to treat Pyro\'s\'s(90 beyer) snail like final time in light of the time of Indian Blessing (99beyer). Guess TG will give Pyro a fig with the sl pace note.Pyro\'s last quarter of 22. 60 is freakish despite the slow pace.
Mike
>More interesting is how to treat Pyro\'s\'s(90 beyer) snail like final time in light of the time of Indian Blessing (99beyer). Guess TG will give Pyro a fig with the sl pace note.Pyro\'s last quarter of 22. 60 is freakish despite the slow pace. <
This kind of thing is always an issue when the pace may have impacted the final time (which IMO it almost certainly did in this case).
I believe you should just give the race the figure it deserves and make note of the pace so people can subjectively decide what, if any impact it had on the the individual horses. The reason I believe that is because the horses have different levels of ability and run different paces within the same race. So they are impacted differently.
The problem of course is that it\'s often difficult to seperate the impact of pace from the impact of the track speed when assigning a figure.
From looking at the chart and replay, I\'d guess that Silver Lord and Magna Graduate will both get better figs (roughly equal weight; more ground loss than beaten lengths) than Grasshopper.
Miff,
Didn\'t Beyer give Smarty Jones a 99 when TG had him at Negative Three. The Beters are ok but I would be careful looking strictly at them when measuring performance.
Regarding Ragozin they gave One Hot Wish a 1 last April in a 2YO four furlong dash so a Negative 2 for Grasshopper seems about right does it not?
Silver,
With respect, if Grass gets neg -5 1/2 on TG, you can use that sheet for wallpaper.Unimaginable!! Don\'t recall Smarty Beyers but fig makers sometimes disagree.
Mike
I don\'t know of any other place where there is serious figure making discussion. I\'m proud it takes place on this board.
Bit-- Basically correct, the second and third finishers got slightly better numbers.
SC and Miff-- it\'s almost impossible that Ragozin gave GH a negative figure. If he did, the right way to use the sheet would be around the house, but not as wallpaper.
JB,
...too rough on the derriere, no?, that Rag paper.
Mike
Fractional time\'s in the Risen Star may also imo have been the result of a slow playing surface for that race .. .
Pyro\'s number should be overshadowed by \"Z\"\'s number in the same race. 6 pounds more and he enountered 2 lengths more in ground loss (on my trip notes) then was only beat by two lengths by the winner.
Pyro was 5/1 in the futures, \"Z\" was 40/1!!!
>Fractional time\'s in the Risen Star may also imo have been the result of a slow playing surface for that race <
The one problem with the idea that the track slowed down for that race is that Pyro came home in eye popping raw time.
You may be right fkach - I was just entertaining the idea that \"if\" indeed the track came up slow for the race while taking into account ground loss , that effort would be even more impressive ...
I was actually talking about the breeding of Asiatic Boy and I really only study it back 3 generations and note the roots of the fourth, beyond that it\'s interesting, but a little less likely ancient lighting in a bottle is gonna strike again. Others say the whole breeding angle is hogwash. I think it has its place, you just have to know when to use it.
On another note, slow is slow unless you\'re factoring Poly. But Slow early on Poly is as much as a figure deflater as Slow early on Dirt and you can\'t run real fast late to make up for too slow early. Pyro finished like a horse with potential, but he ran a slow number and you can\'t hand him his most honestly made figure just because he won by 3 and had earned a fast number before. It doesn\'t work like that.
The filly would have kicked his ass.
marcus Wrote:
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> Fractional time\'s in the Risen Star may also imo
> have been the result of a slow playing surface for
> that race and in \"theory\" , horses likely would
> have otherwise been more strung out thusly
> rendering Pyro\'s overland route unnecessary .
>
> After following Chucks query all the way back , i
> did see his point about proximate\"old blood\" lines
> for Grasshopper but what distances and type of
> tracks did they have back then ( at Stonehinge
> Downs ) ...
I bought the Rags once -- is that why they were perforated?
>The filly would have kicked his ass. <
If Pyro raced against the filly, she would have set a faster pace than Pyro faced in the Risen Star. So IMO Pyro\'s final time would have been faster because it\'s likely he would have been dragged into faster more efficient fractions early also. It\'s hard to measure how much faster, but IMHO Pyro is the better horse (though that is one fast filly and she is learning to relax a little).
fkach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >The filly would have kicked his ass. <
>
> If Pyro raced against the filly, she would have
> set a faster pace than Pyro faced in the Risen
> Star. So IMO Pyro\'s final time would have been
> faster because it\'s likely he would have been
> dragged into faster more efficient fractions early
> also. It\'s hard to measure how much faster, but
> IMHO Pyro is the better horse (though that is one
> fast filly and she is learning to relax a little).
>
To paraphrase Steve Crist, there\'s no way of knowing what kind of fractions Pyro needs to be able to uncork that kind of rally. Closers look better in a fast pace scenario because the front runners are backing up as much as the closers are going forward. If Pyro had to chase faster fractions he might not have had enough in the tank to come home as quickly as he did.
That said, I\'m taking Indian Blessing in a match race but Pyro in a full field of stakes quality horses.
thanks ctc2 - incidently asiatic boy\'s sheet does have the fast nad al sheba number but it dosen\'t indicate that soundness is there ...
>To paraphrase Steve Crist, there\'s no way of knowing what kind of fractions Pyro needs to be able to uncork that kind of rally. Closers look better in a fast pace scenario because the front runners are backing up as much as the closers are going forward. If Pyro had to chase faster fractions he might not have had enough in the tank to come home as quickly as he did. <
I think it\'s almost certain that if the pace was faster Pyro wouldn\'t have come home as fast, but I think it\'s equally certain the fractions he ran in the Risen Star were far from opitimal if the goal was to produce the fastest possible final time.