Any thoughts as to qualifying criteria? New designated races? Spring colts placed in a bubble? Top summer colts excluded?

Love the pattern on Ami\'s Mesa as well; if she can jump up on first time dirt the projected number makes her live at a price to hit the board. Should have ample time to launch a stretch run. Other than Finley\'s the others have been taking turns beating each other.

Correct - Songandaprayer won the FOY and ran 2nd in the Blue Grass, if the points system now in place would have existed then he would have qualified for the KD.

All the excuses for Mohaymen\'s performance in the FD (heat, humidity, track condition) were also factors that Nyquist had to deal with, plus the shipping. Just because he won the FD didn\'t mean he was immune to those factors. The paired number NYQ earned under those circumstances was the basis for believing he was not only a vulnerable favorite but a false favorite (slower than several others). In retrospect it looks like the performance discounting that was applied to Mohaymen should have also been applied to the winner as well.

Nyqvist owned the race today from the first step out of the gate.

Whether one agrees with the reasoning behind the steward\'s decision or not, yesterday\'s Classic start and first furlong resembled the beginning to the feature race at CD on the first Saturday in May, in just about every year. Don\'t recall much steward intervention in that situation over the years, nor much righteous indignation from handicappers over the lack of same.  

Interestingly, the back view didn\'t look as outrageous as the head on - Bayern had partially cleared SB and came over, Moreno came out a bit and was ahead of SB as well. VE Day walked out. No horse appeared to have lost their action.

Huh??? They don\'t stick around and one gets paid, so it\'s OK to keep chewing all of them up and spitting them out? Thanks for clarifying your position.

If the Triple Crown as currently run was pitched de novo as a race series in 2014, the spacing would be universally shot down by all aspects of the sport as not good for the health of the horses, optimizing participation in the series and lowering the quality of the latter race (JB has noted before the drop off in performance after a closely spaced race interval occurs in the subsequent race). All the other divisions of racing have rejcted that spacing, despite the opportunity (the relatively pathetic Preakness undercard). It thus fails the test of reasonableness.

But the obsessive quest for just one false messiah and \"tradition\" (defined as whatever yardstick one wants to use - in this case 1969) trumps all that and keeps horse racing\'s head stuck in a dark, dark place.

This quixotic search for the next Secretariat has also increased the possibility for the next Ruffian. Racing will have no defense for that should it occur.

You\'re missing the point. It\'s not about winning the Triple Crown. It\'s about the horses.

I don\'t care how many times the Triple Crown is won, or not won. The post was a response to the notion that if the spacing remains the same that it\'s the same challenge as those who campaigned in the TC 40+ years ago. To believe that is to be in denial over how the game has changed and its consequences to its participants.

Whether a horse accomplishes it or not doesn\'t change the fact that asking for modern-day efforts with old-fashioned spacing leads increasingly to beaten up stars, missing key challengers, and worsens the series overall. It\'s supposed to be the best three year olds facing each other in the spring. When it went to the current spacing it wasn\'t intended to be the survival test to the degree it is today. The downside of holding to traditional spacing is outweighing the accomplishment of winning all three, whenever it happens.

I\'d prefer to see top three year olds running their best efforts against each other in all three races. What we get now are missing challengers and increasingly broken down horses in the finale who have run in all three races.

The mesmerizing thrill of chasing this elusive fantasy is causing increasing collateral damage to the sport, eating its young. What is this, Hunger Games?

It\'ll probably change when we eventually get an Eight Belles-like event with 25 million watching and the Triple Crown on the line.

It already is the Triple Crown*. The game has changed for years, and this series hasn\'t.

To pretend otherwise is to ignore evolution of the game (for better or worse), increasingly ruin its budding stars and dilute the competition of these races. The TC either tracks the current stakes racing paradigm (as it did years before when those TC winners of yesteryear did their running), or it now represents something other than what was accomplished in the past.

Were Alydar or Easy Goer 3yos in 2014, they would likely not have run in the Preakness and waited for the Belmont. That good for the Triple Crown?

We\'ve watched stake preps for both the KD and the Breeder\'s Cup continually space back from their championship dates. Training, drugs, whatever routinely lead to through-the-top performances and require more recovery. The TC spacing is increasingly more against the standard of practice for campaigning top stakes horses; it thus also magnifies the difference in performance capability between those horses running in all three races vis-a-vis those that don\'t, compared to years past.

You may want to pretend they are running just like they did in the 70\'s, but that it delusion. Keeping the spacing the same as it was when stakes horses ran at those intervals as a matter of routine IMO makes the TC series worse, not better. If you want things to be as they used to be, then we have to change all of it back - and that isn\'t going to happen.

He doesn\'t appear to be wearing it in his work at Belmont.

FWIW, here is the lead-in, and conclusion, from Kerry Thomas\'s Derby analysis on the General:

\"With four victories and three seconds in seven lifetime starts, General a Rod is a very good equine athlete. But almost every year we
bestow at least one of the Derby horses with the dreaded "buddy up" label. General a Rod is one of those horses...

...In the stretch of the Besilu Florida Derby (G1), there was a point where Wildcat Red broke his focus from General a Rod and
transferred it to the looming challenge on the rail from Constitution. Those two colts hooked up in a fierce space battle. General a Rod
had an opportunity there to advance on a pair of horses locked in battle. Instead of going forward, General a Rod drifted laterally. This
is not a natural leader.
General a Rod's energy burn is low, and that helps him distance-wise, but in order to win the Derby he will need to develop a killer
instinct that he has not yet shown. There will be plenty of high-dynamic horses for him to attach to in this field. We think he is going to
be looking for a buddy in the Derby, and that is rarely the path to the winner's circle.\"

Maybe credible, maybe not. Lots of good horses run up the track in the TC, for seemingly inexplicable reasons. I considered this a negative despite the horse\'s competitive figures (earned by running along, not up to, competitive horses) - he checked all the boxes pre-Derby, no? Reasonable play for underneath in these races given the expected trips (taken off the pace), but not for the win.

No thanks, you can tell him.

Unfortunately, we\'ll never know thanks to the filly. JC was on a roll today.

Filly took Bayern out straight away from the gate, then she backs into ARod after insanely prompting the pace, finishes last. Brilliant decision by the owner to run here - moves the filly from Baffert, then takes out his colt.

According to the Herd Whisperer, ARod was just going to join up with Social Inclusion and buddy with him to the wire without passing...which he did anyway.

Wrongly Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Completely agree Vinny.  Also surprised at the
> similarities between Three Rings sheet and IMLD.
> Sure IMLD is faster but the sheets look similar
> and I\'m hoping for a similar fate.


Similar fate? Hope you\'re just talking her Derby performance...the 1999 Mother Goose was a tragic end to a game filly.

Meanwhile, who now will take the 20th spot in the field? Tiz a Minister? A filly? Hornung\'s horse?

Irony choices (for fun):

Departing (Ill derby winner wins and makes for an interesting trophy presentation
Baffert\'s Oaks filly - \"It was the easier spot\"
Uncaptured - KJC winner, another canadian 2yo champ

Idontrollonshabbos....the horse may not roll on Shabbos, but he certainly lugs in on the day after.

Though I agree UR was not at his best trip (was that the best trip for any of them?), he was set up for a peak performance. He has been in constant training for months towards producing a peak effort in the spring, and didn\'t have to deal with reacting after a peak effort, unlike Paynter (especially since that one being lightly raced).

Expecting a \"0\" player or two come Travers time, unclear which Grade 1 that day he would have a better chance of winning.

Atigun probably getting a similar number (4w for part of 2nd turn)...who was unplaced in three stakes attempts going in.

It was a commendable performance by the the top three.