One of the greatest performances I\'ve ever seen. At least four wide on both turns. He must have traveled 200 feet farther than Fed Biz. Incredible race horse. And Mike Smith taking a bad spill in the race before comes back; wow, he\'s some athlete. They deserve each other. Good luck to everyone else for running second in the BC this year.
Sure looks like Baffert\'s instructions to Espinoza was keep Shared Belief outside of Sky Kingdom if you want to ride American Pharoah again!
KK4510 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sure looks like Baffert\'s instructions to Espinoza
> was keep Shared Belief outside of Sky Kingdom if
> you want to ride American Pharoah again!
people are killing Espinoza but he has to follow trainer orders and the plan nearly worked..good solid plan to me..
Yeah, really, it almost worked. Never seen a horse go so wide and recover. There was also a huge inside speed bias to contend with, so Baffert had a good plan.
I\'m pretty specific and pointed about my opinions on specific horses when posting on the board.
After the Cash Call Futurity, I was convinced Shared Belief was an unbelievable horse but with-held posting here my conviction he would win the Derby. He has been unbelievable. That race today was special.
For all the Mike Smith haters....how about some of the horses he has had.....Royal Delta, Zenyatta, Shared Belief....among many others....I want Shared Belief to get it done in the BC. I almost never cheer for the favorite. With an older division that has went to hell in a handbasket, I\'m rooting for a 3yo champion/BC Classic winner to renew my Belief in the game....who will be at SA....I should be and would love to meet a few TG-enerates as Richiebee describes us...
As for Jcovello, I don\'t feel bad for the guy.....But his horse ran his f&%*$( guts out today. I posted about him after his Churchill run for Catalano, recovers as jim describes, and has become monsterous. I bet Vyjack all summer til today and was not happy with the result when I was all In on River ROcks. As another posted, I would have threw up if Dad\'s Cap won his race.....
EDIT: And on two different interviews, Smith said this was a \"hard race\" or a \"hard, hard race.\" Take it FWIW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmg5pOSBEEEsure
Hopefully the link works.
A few years back this race came up at one of the Saratoga seminars
Enjoy.
Bob
I just watched the LA Times raw feed on youtube. Unreal performance!
No wayyyy. His trainer died earlier this year. Wow.....
Before my time and awesome. Lac Ouimet, an also ran in that race, was one of the first sires I started to follow in Illinois as a sire to watch for the Statebred races.
To the board, keep posting the historical stuff before my time....
Jockey that day was Cordero...notice the right whip to the face in the stretch to get him back on track..
Shared Belief 101 Beyer....Tonalist 106 Beyer....okie dokie!
According to TRAKUS Shared Belief traveled 66 feet farther than the winner.
yes, app 7.75 lengths more according to one measuring stick.
7.75 lengths...
Which is about 12 Beyer points at 1 1/8 miles.
\"There was also a huge inside speed bias to contend with\"
If so, horses all day long were doing a hell of a job of contending with it.
No doubt a great performance on Saturday.
As to the Classic, I think what is key is that the gelding has limited bottom (7 lifetime starts), is coming off a big top (I would guess a -2 TG), may not have liked the track (post-race trainer quote) and looked like one tired runner after the gallop out.
All that tells me that he will a prime bounce candidate on November 1, which is one thing he has in his favor (35 days to recover).
Shared Belief\'s race was average on the clock, his trip horrific re ground loss.Dirt form ok but seems more confident on synth.Hollendorfer remarked that SB was not handling SA dirt surface too well on Sat, may play with shoes.
Two yr old, American Pharoah, ran a \"projected\" 1 1/8 mile race just as fast as SB on the clock,but lost no ground.
BC Classic looking very ordinary outside of SB and Tonalist who is not that fast. Older horses, Moreno, Zivo et al are mediocre, Wicked Strong not playing. Maybe a Euro can sneak up on them.
Haven\'t done it yet but the relationship will come out about right if SB and Pharoah both paired their last.
Agree there\'s the potential for an out of the clouds bomb in the Classic.
Meanwhile, I can\'t believe some are defending the use of an uncoupled entry mate to take out an opponent. Imagine if we had to guess each time Pletcher and Chad Brown had an uncoupled entry which was trying to win and which was running interference.
If they had coupled entries on the West Coast, You would have 7 horse fields with three betting interests. Baffert and Hollendorfer run multiple horses in a race quite often. Throw in a few Sadler and Miller horses we\'re looking a match race.
The problem is not that they\'re uncoupled, it\'s if they act like they ARE coupled. Anybody who bet on Espinoza\'s horse had no shot-- he wasn\'t trying to win.
TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The problem is not that they\'re uncoupled, it\'s if
> they act like they ARE coupled. Anybody who bet on
> Espinoza\'s horse had no shot-- he wasn\'t trying to
> win.
100% agree, I had this discussion with a buddy of mine after the race.
Its OK to run a stablemate to try and eliminate another horse?? I get the \"rabbit\" concept, but herding out and trying to interfere is ridiculous.
Would you like betting on races with THAT going on every time??
My point. Think about how many times at Saratoga Pletcher and Brown had uncoupled entries.
Same for using an UNcoupled entrymate as a rabbit, too.
TGJB,
Espinoza received 7 days for the ride . At the very least baffert should
have some answering to do .
I completely agree with that. Espinoza was in a bad spot-- tough to say no. And afterward Baffert professed ignorance.
TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I completely agree with that. Espinoza was in a
> bad spot-- tough to say no. And afterward Baffert
> professed ignorance.
Not only that, he went on Roger Stein\'s show and said he \"never give riders any advice\"...said he learned that from Frankel...
I wonder how everyone would be taking this if SB had lost the photo, and taken a coupla million in bets down with him...
\"These guys are fierce competitors,\" Baffert said, alluding to Espinoza, Smith, and others in the jockey colony. \"I see it happen to my horses when you have a good one. I didn\'t tell Victor to do that. He stayed away from my other horse, Fed Biz...Game On Dude, that\'s why I retired him, because he was starting to get mugged, every race. I didn\'t cry about it. I just retired him.\"
From an article in ESPN Horse Racing
About the ride, to quote the old joke,
\"You gonna believe me or your eyes?\"
Here\'s another angle on the Espinoza motive.
If he really pushes SB with a horse with no shot not only does he help BB but he and CC also might face a runner with a little less in the tank on November 1.
I don\'t think Chrome is a big contender but it sure would be nice if the favorite was short.
I have always liked the way Australian Racing handles this. Their rule is that every horse has to be raced to their best advantage. For a horse to be ridden like Sky Kingdom was, the rider would have to explain to the stewards how that helped him try to win the race. Ireland continues to allow Aidan O\'Brien to employ team tactics. The Brits are a bit tough on them.