Has anyone considered that Came Home was not 100% before the Santa Anita Derby? That he came out of the race with a bit of a tepmerature? That he still won despite all the negatives going into that race? That he is 6 for 7? Tossing the SA Derby, he is the fastest horse? That he is training very well at CD? I seriously doubt he will be higher than 5-1 at post time. McCarron in a big money race is not to be overlooked.
Came Home is one of 3 dual qualifiers. The other 2 are Johannesburg and Saarland.
I think there is a lot more to knock on those two horses than there is on Came Home.
And so, my preliminary picks in order are Came Home, Johannesburg. Saarland will be no better than third, possibly worse. Have not yet recieved the TG Derby figs which may alter my exotic wagering stratagy, but despite the past few years, the dual qualifier system is a mathamatically and statistically sound formula for predicting the winner of the derby.
I might add that this crop stinks real bad, but given the past few years, thats expected. Last year I said the same about that crop and predicted than NONE would be around as 4 year olds. I wasn\'t far off.
However, I hope for a safe trip for all and look forward to the discussion and the race.
MO
Came Home line is really really bad. Two things.
1. Has a backward moving line.
2. Has a \"bi\" mark for his last race. Only one horse in the past 20 years has ever won or ran second in the derby with a bi-bo mark in the 3yr line. On TG numbers. bi/bo is known for horses have problems (see Repent).
Backward line could be because he he was having the minor health problems stated earlier. He ain\'t training like he\'s gonna keep backing up!
BO is much more serious than BI. BO means serious problems with legs. BI is sign of a tired horse, but not necessarily injury, though it could be.
I have seen cases where horses have won next start despite last race being noted BI or BO. Not often, mind you, but it does happen.
I have no confidence in the rest of the field, and had Repent been sound and entered here, he\'d be my pick. I am punting with Came Home, but only because of the reasons stated above and in previous post.
All the best.
MO
think the odds will be closer to 10-1 than 5-1, he does not run like he wants to go a mile and a quarter. but if you think this year\'s three year olds are that bad, I guess betting the best big race jockey in the world at 10-1 is not a bad bet.... good luck !!
Mark,
Let me preface this by saying that I think Came Home is a really good horse. You have to respect all those daylight wins. I think he will get a lot of respect as people start looking at the DRF and seeing 1st by 3, 1st by 2, 1st by 4, etc. I think he could be a great horse at 1 mile or less. However, he is the one likely favorites (has to be one of the top 3 public picks at post time) that I will compeletely toss.
His line looks horrible. He paired two very fast races as a 2yo and then reacted. He then comes out and sizzles off the layoff (his trainer is THE best layoff trainer in the US)and has gotten progressively slower with each race as the distances stretch out. You will not find this line on any previous Derby winner.
You mentioned the temperature as an excuse. Well, he spiked a temp after his previous race as well. In my mind, that indicates a reaction to the stress of the race and is yet another negative to go along with his BI and incredibly slow stretch run in the SA Derby.
With regards to being a DQ, he qualifies on dosage and 2yo brilliance but his breeding is far from Derby Caliber (and I am sure that Dr. Steven Roman the inventor of dosage would agree). His broodmare sire has an average winning distance of 6.9 furlongs. You will not see anything close to that in any previous derby winner. Add that to his sire AWD which is mediocre at best and you conclude he has very little chance to win the Derby from a breeding angle. Finally, he is bound to be pressing a hot pace, which will only magnify his distance limitations.
I like the horse. He is brilliant and has great connections but he will not be on any of my tickets unless his odds are much higher than I expect.
Good luck to all.
Chris
Chris,
What was Came Home\'s figure in the SA Derby?
MO
Mark
3.75
Chris
OK.
So we have a pattern that can\'t be called an 0-2-x.
I\'m no expert on TG patterns, but this is how i view his overall record;
breaks maiden 1st time out. good sign.
improves 9.25 points and pairs it on 6 weeks rest. good sign.
bounces off cross country ship and 8 weeks rest. 8 weeks off suggests a physical problem, but the bounce was still a better figure than his worst figure to date. So i see it more positively than negatively.
3 months later, he runs a career top, 4 points better than his best.
next start is 1st try at 2 turns and he wins by daylight with just a slight bounce (1.25 points).
In the derby, while not 100% cranked up for it, he wins by daylight with, granted, a slower figure than his previous race, but still faster than his best at 2 years old.
I view this as positive developement. Even when he\'s off, he\'s fast and consistant.
He gets 4 weeks rest, ships to CD and works faster than he did before SA derby. He clearly loves CD and clearly is over any illness. If he gets back to his top, which is not impossible, he wins by daylight.
One last thing: didn\'t his sire, Gone West, sire a Belmont Stakes winner?
Remember, these 3 yo horses are typical of the way horses are bred today: speed, no stamina. Thunder Gulch, Real Quiet, Charismatic and Monarchos weren\'t supposed to win on breeding either, so I think that angle is not as useful as it was in the past when really good horses were running.
Interesting discussion, though. Keep it comin!
MO
Mark, your statement about this year\'s crop \"stinking real bad\" is ridiculous. What are you basing this statement on, your expert observations of the prep races? Do you even use the Thorograph figures?
I think if you look at the derby package sheets, you will see that the average (and absolute best) figures run by this year\'s crop are FAR better than any other year\'s, with the exception of last year. Add up the number of figures of 2.75 or less run by the contenders this year. I think you will find many more this year than in past years (except last year).
Sorry, but I just don\'t understand that statement. And I still don\'t understand your \"Thunder Gulch is a fraud\" statement, but oh well.....
Mark,
You are right Commendable had Gone West as his sire and he won the Belmont, however, he had pretty good bottom-side breeding and got away with a turtle-like pace in the race. Came Home is weakest on the bottom-side and I don\'t think they will be going 49 or 50 and change for the half in the Derby.
I would say Came Home\'s pattern is an 0-2-4 rather than an 0-2-X. The difference being that I think his last race was an effort and possibly even a \"last gasp.\"
Maybe in the Derby he could draw an inside post and save ground and either slow down the pace or suddenly show the ability to lay well off a hot pace and maybe even find the closing kick that he lacked in the SA Derby and win it all or at least hit the board. I would say there is about a 3 or 4 percent chance of that happening. At the likely odds that doesn\'t make him very playable.
Chris
Yes I do use them. These horses, like last years crop (which also stunk by the way) run fast as 2 and 3 year olds for a race or two, maybe three. Good horses keep running fast races throughout their career.
Last really good crop was that of 1987. The Crop from 1997 was pretty good. Other than that, names like Secretariat, Buckpasser, Dr Fager, Personal Ensign,Seattle Slew, Affirmed, Alysheba conjur up the image of a great horse. None of this years crop will ever be compared to those, since there is no comparison, thats why this crop stinks.
However, they will load 20 horses into the gate for the Kentucky Derby. These are the best we have now, so when I look at the field, I do not see much to beat. You have 2 mutliple grade 1 winners in the field (both having a win at 9f), and they each have only 2 G1 wins. Johannesburg has one and the rest couldn\'t qualify to win any recent derby using that criteria.
Harlans Holiday- can\'t see an offspring of Harlan winning at 10f. Haven\'t seen the TG figs for all yet, so i reserve the right to change my mind, but I don\'t really see anything in there including HH, Johannesburg or Saarland scaring me off Came Home. Now if Came Home were running against great horses, he\'d be a throw out as well.
Came Home will get my bet, but I won\'t tap out and won\'t be surprised if he gets beat, just dissappointed.
MO
Chris,
what is your interpretation of an 0-2-4 as opposed to an 0-2-x?
CH\'s 2nd start was only 1.25 points slower than his previous top, so can\'t understand how you arrive at 0-2-4.
MO
I agree that Came Home is \"underrated\". He IS 6 for 7 and is very game. I also think the SA Derby runner-up Easy Grades is being overlooked. His pattern resembles Saarland and I think the wide/premature move vs. CH in the SA Derby was the reason he hung the last 1/8. I\'m looking for a better timed ride instead of trying to get him to make a run for 5/8 of a mile like last time going 3 or 4 wide. At a possible 25 or 30-1 I think he is a must use in the exotics.
Mark,
You are right. It is an 0-1-4 which is even worse. Three straight efforts, with a very weak trend. You can probably pencil in the X for the next race given the increased distance, increased pace pressure and the current condition line. I just don\'t see him running a good race but maybe he will fool me; however, of the real fast horses going into the Derby(those that have already run close to a \"0\"), he looks like the weakest of the bunch to me.
Just one other note and then I will leave Came Home alone. Remember I do think he is a good horse just not a Derby winner. I don\'t pay a lot of attention to the final Derby works but the last thing I would want to see from Came Home is to have him firing bullets in his works and on the muscle in his gallops. To have any chance at all, he has to relax early in the race.
Chris
Mark,
Distance (1 1/4) ?
Nunzio
Nunzio,
I don\'t understand your post. Please clarify.
Thanks.
MO
Thanks for the explanation. I will keep that in mind, but one last point: man cannot/does not handicap on figures alone. There are many other factors. If Came Home draws post 20 he\'s a throwout. If he\'s washy in the post parade, he\'s a throwout. Same for any other horse that might face these circumstances. Good discussion, man.
MO
Mark,
I beleive 1 1/4 miles is beyond his scope.
Nunzio
Monarchos and Thunder Gulch couldn\'t win because of their breeding? Why do you say that?
Both were sired by specialists at 6f, 7f, 1 mile.
Marias Mon retired with injury. So did his son. Imagine my surprise.
MO
Mark, why do you place so much stock in the sire\'s ability to get distance? The dam\'s side is equally important, and in my estimation, more important. I think you are making a mistake here, but who am I to try to talk you out of it.
I understand a little better what you mean about \"good\" horse now, but what you really mean is durable. I am currently investigating a theory I started after reading the article in bloodhorse about how only one of the winners who raced over the hard derby-day surface last year have come back to win a race.
I then thought of some comments I heard from an owner I met who said that Gulfstream Park is very hard on horses. That got me to thinking, how many horses who spent a winter in Gulfstream, had an effort down there, and either had poor showings and never really did anything again by derby time, or in the case of last year, were done right after the derby. Let\'s look at a recent list...
Monarchos
Invisible Ink (actually attempting a comeback)
Songandaprayer
ThunderBlitz
TalkIsMoney
Hals Hope (an expetion)
Wheelaway
Trippi (went back to sprinting and did OK)
HighYield
Cat Thief (an exception)
Vicar
Wondertross
Stephen Got Even
Adonis
Halory Hunter
Lils Lad
Anyone see where I\'m going with this? Obviously, you can\'t draw a firm conclusion from this, but if I had a star 3 year-old preping for the derby, i would be avoiding GP like the plague.
I was only respnding to the discussion about breeding for Ky Derby. I go by dosage index first and then look at the sire and dam next. The discussion has been that so and so is bred for the derby distance and so and so is not. My point is that despite the fact that many or most of the entrants qualify on dosage, they really aren\'t bred for stamina, but for speed.
One of the criteria for accepting a horse on his dosage profile prior to say 1995 was that the horse must have points in his stamina wing. Thunder Gulch had 0. I\'m not sure about Monarchos or some others, but many horses today are below the 4.00 mark yet still have no points in the stamina wing which up until about 1995 translated into NO SHOT at winning the derby, even if his dosage was below 4.00.
Your point about Florida is a good one. Means Harlans Holiday has NO SHOT. I have other reasons to toss him, but your point seals my decision.
The climate in Florida during that meet is nothing like that of Kentucky, New York or California for that matter. Florida is very humid compared to those other states and high humidity often affects horses negatively.
Last point regarding Florida - some horses love it and can\'t pick up a hoof ANYWHERE else, just like I predicted about Hal\'s Hope after I picked him to win Gulf Hcp. (said he\'d be off the board in next start and he was.)
MO
The Stamina Wing should include half the Classic Points. In which case Thunder Gulch had 4 points not zero.
If you are referring to Solid and Professional only, then yes he had zero then. But so did past Kentucky Derby winners
Affirmed (TCW), Sunday Silence (won 2/3 of Crown and 2nd in Belmont), Strike the Gold (2nd in Belmont) & Lil E. Tee.
Then Thunder Gulch won 2/3\'s of TC followed by Real Quiet, Charismatic and Fusaichi Pegasus.
Monarchos had a point in the Solid.
In something like a 50 year sample, SS, TG, Lil E Tee and Affirmed were the exceptions and I was referring to Solid and Professional only.
Now you all know the story about Thunder Gulch, so I won\'t beat a dead horse.
The reason Affirmed kept beating Alydar was because Alydar refused to change leads. And we all know who wins the race in the breeding shed.
Sunday Silence, well I just feel Easy Goer was the better horse. He could not handle Churchill and none of his offspring do. If you watch the Derby closely, you\'ll see SS nearly put Northern Wolf OVER THE RAIL. Had it been any other race (and I am quoting a former NYRA steward), SS gets disqualified.
In Preakness not sure who got the better fig, but it was a great race. In Belmont, Easy Goer kicked SS\'s butt REAL BAD. (However, Phipps refused to let SS get in a workout over the Belmont surface which may have been an excuse for SS getting beat)
You\'ll also notice that Real Quiet and Silver Charm and I think Charasmatic did not train at Belmont for the Belmont. There\'s an unwritten rule there that if you don\'t train in NY, you\'ll not get the Triple Crown.You can look it up. Only Affirmed accomplished that trick without training in NY that spring, though he did train at Saratoga as a 2yo.
Lil E Tee never amounted to anything. Just a footnote that Pat Day finally won the Derby.
Strike the Gold was not the best horse in the Derby that year. Hansel was and proved it later on. Best Pal had a wide trip (2nd) in Derby and I think got a better fig than STG.
I always felt STG was counterfiet (I took great pleasure in beating him on a regular basis) but I agree with the fact he should have qualified on dosage before the race.
Long and short of it is that statistacally, you gotta have points in Solid and or Professional. But now with so many being bred for speed, that angle may be worn out.
MO
\"staying\"is a function of company. came home would beat me at 10 furlongs, that wouldn\'t mean he stayed. He won at 9f because he was so much classier than the rest. Can that happen at 10f ? you\'ve got to doubt it unless he is truly great (and the rest are truly average). It can happen but it\'s the kind of bet that would probably make you poor in the long run.
he reminds me of more than ready. MTR did not stay 9f, yet was a bobble away from winning the blue grass. MTR did not stay 10f, yet was 4th in the derby. if came home is better than MTR (and that is possible) that comparison is the best argument for backing came home for me. for me he won\'t be in the first 2 - is he classy enough to hang on for a minor share ? maybe.
by the way MTR worked very well at CD before the derby. I was suckered into backing him (even though I had distance doubts) and will not make the same mistake with came home.
Mark, for someone who is so into dosage, how is it that you have picked the WORST possible dosage profile of any of the contenders as this year\'s winner? Yeah, Came Home qualifies, but with a 4.00 and 1.0 CD.
The dosage results in recent years speak for themselves. This may have been a useful tool years ago, and if you stretch a study back 20-30 years it may still look good statistically, but the trend is your friend. I don\'t think it has meant a thing in the last 5 years.
Much more relevant stats are those which are 100% factual, and not the opinion of some person who decides which horses provide points in which categories. Average winning distance that is a statistical and undebateable fact. Secratariat splits his dosage between Classic and Intermediate. How can that be proven? Will you still call Thunder Gulch a fraud when 10 year from now Dr Steve adds some sire to the list that changes TGs dosage? Will there EVER be any new Solid or Professional sires added to the list, given that speed is now bred so heavily? This tool has served it\'s purpose and it\'s time to move on, in my opinion...
You have made some good points, even if you are repeating what I already said.
Came Home\'s dosage is 4.00. Thats borderline, and I thought I made myself clear - that this crop stinks, but he\'s the fastest horse. Put him in a race with the \"great horses\" I have mentioned earlier and he has no shot. His Center of distribution is a perfect 1.00, so thats a good thing.
Thunder Gulch\'s dosage was 4.00 as well. Roman won\'t have to change it. And everyone here knows why I call him a fraud. It ain\'t because of dosage.
I am into dosage \"as a rule\" only for the Derby and the Belmont. These are unique races. Came Home is a dual qualifier (see experimental hcp.)There are 2 others, Saarland and Johannesburg. The latter can\'t win off a 7f prep shipping overseas. The former did not look impressive to me in the Wood and judging by what I\'ve heard about his figures, he\'ll bounce to the moon. So I\'m stuck with Came Home, and its not really bad being stuck with the fastest horse.
Back at Saratoga I tried to beat him with the horse that scratched from the derby Trial. Then I thought that 8f and 9f were too far.
Wrong on all counts. This horse is for real.
My money will be on him, but I won\'t tap out and I won\'t be surprised if he gets beat, just dissappointed. If he wins, I won\'t gloat (unless you force me). If he loses, remember that I had the balls to take a stand, and that no handicapper can ever hope to make a big score if they can\'t muster that kind of confidence. (Though I was a lot more confident when I picked Alysheba and Sea Hero.)
In closing, I guess you agree with my assessment about Affirmed, Strike The Gold and all the others mentioned earlier. Its been a good discussion and I appreciate your patience in discussing it with me. Hopefully we can all learn from this. Peace.
MO