Making Sausages, Sinister Minister, Luxor and "The Derby Horse"

[T Severini]

Lets Start with \"The Derby Horse\". Allow me to point out the best TGraph Fig for the horses coming into the Bluegrass, while enjoying this homemade Ukranian Borscht. (The difference between Ukranian Borscht and Russian Borscht is Ukranian Borscht utilizes Pork and the Russian variety Beef... Ukranian Borscht is better!) Slava Ukraine.

River Thames/Fountain of Youth: 3 with gate issue
Render Judgment/Virginia Derby  5 with blinkers added
Burnham Square/Holy Bull/ Fountain of Youth: Paired 4\'s
Owen Almighty/Tampa Bay Derby    2 as pace horse on slow pace
East Avenue/Breeder Futurity (2YO): 3 on a perhaps not extended call
Chancer McPatrick/Tampa Derby/Champaign (2Y0)  3.1 slow pace in TB Derby
Admiral Dennis/Maiden and Optional Claimer/ 7.3

Your Derby Lover is no figure maker, however looking at the Bluegrass Tony is hit with a conundrum. He does not see how the winners figure factoring wide cannot be big. Real big. So we will put our faith in the host\'s powers and skill to determine the sausage.  It was Bismarck that said the public should not know how laws or sausages are made.  It will be a good sausage.

ajkreider, share your premise that waiting for the first Euro/Japan breakthrough is a prudent position. Forever Young was at the door last year.  Will not rule out the foreign horses, but want to see the particulars of the ship, time on track, work activity and intent to acclimate.

Silvercharm you said you have your horse? Kudos. Not even close here yet. The Whitham horse was a standout in his race per my handicapping. He didn\'t stand out as I\'d hoped however.

Jbelfoir... Sinister Minister was my Key that year. You win some, you lose some. Would just point out that he was a Cheatfort front end horse which certainly came into vogue both this year and in recent years past.

Gonna have us some fun

[toppled]

I\'ll look at the Japanese horse when the numbers come out to see if he worries me.  At heart, I\'m still a class handicapper using who the horses have beaten.  Before seeing the final #s, my horse is Sovereignty. He\'s already defeated the Bluegrass Stakes, Louisiana Derby, and Arkansas Derby winners.  He ran fast enough in the FOY to put him there & was not abused in his final Derby prep from a bad post with an unfamiliar jockey.  I have my doubts with Journalism.  His top # is fast enough, but his 3 stakes wins have been against weak 5 horse fields. I don\'t know the stats, but I prefer horses who are more used to running in bigger fields than groups of 5 going into the Derby. I think Rodriguez ran against nothing in NY & will face extreme pace pressure in the Derby. Prior to his NY win, he\'s too slow.    
Full disclosure: I have Sovereignty in the last KD Futures pool at $21.40 will pay.  I didn\'t see anything better in the races run this past week and wasn\'t afraid of Journalism, although I might save with exacta boxes with him along with the Japanese horse.

[Roman]

I loved Burnham Square in his last start at Gulfstream,  and thought the short stretch, the 16th pole finish line was a big disadvantage for him,  and probably confirmed by his gallop out after the race. He was 4-5 lengths in front at the traditional finish line.

Liked him in the Bluegrass, but ended up just singling East Ave.

Seems wide open 3 weeks out. Will East Ave be used as a pace setter for Godolphin?  If he gets an easy lead,  he might hold on. If they go to fast,  it sets it up for Sovereignty, who looked really good winning the Street Sense  over the CD strip as a 2 year old.  And visually , his move around the turn that day was impressive,  the kind of trip that wins a derby.

[Roman]

East Avenue\'s trip in the Derby.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iwUkita91Do

[T Severini]

Hey Roman,

Watching East Avenue in the Bluegrass left me some goosebumps. When a horse gives one some goosebumps the lesson is to pay some attention.

Looked into East\'s off \"right lead\" late in the stretch. Previous races revealed East knows how to change to the proper left lead. East tired a bit in the stretch and had every right to. He only yielded late on what I believe was a hot pace. (Will Check That.) East\'s lead change is difficult to pick up. It appears his right fore hoof is darker and that makes it hard to pick up the lead. His gate also makes picking up the lead change harder. If I put my finger on it, I\'ll share. East is schooled in lead change, no worries.

East is a physical specimen. He is also well bred, though will spend some additional time looking into near pedigree distance accomplishments for the field.

Without a final field yet, it appears East could be the race quickness. Not sure what the whispers are, but I\'m taking him very seriously and if he did prevail it seems pretty clear it will be a War Emblem type race.

Sovereignty is also Godolphin and a very good horse. He didn\'t need a point from the Florida Derby and have to think they sent him into it guarding to \"not squeeze the lemon dry\". (Horatio Luro) He is an off the pace horse with the risks that entails.

[Roman]

Agree on everything regarding East Ave. T, the blinkers sure seemed to help him. Hopefully he is just not a Keeneland horse.

Regarding pedigree, here you go.
https://www.pedigreequery.com/east+avenue4

Distance should not be an issue. It\'s if he is good enough.

[jwbcardinals]

Nice catch.  I rewatched the replay and he took a little jump and switched leads over the tracks from where the starting gate was moved.  If you watch closely you can see it is where they raked up the tracks but he must have just been spooked enough to try to avoid them.  Not sure he wins without switching leads, but it certainly impacted him in deep stretch.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QUWc4L3N8o

[Roman]

He should be adding a shadow roll for the Derby.
The margin of victory was close enough to where that might have lost him the race.

[T Severini]

They say... \"Boxing is the Sweet Science\". Bah... Humbug.

Coming up with the Whitham horses Bluegrass number is the Sweet Science, with a little \"op\" next to it and subsequently taking the \"Lewis and Clark\" overland route.

It appears the genesis of \"East jumped all over the stretch\" comes from an immediate post race interview with Godolphin\'s Michael Banahan who was pleased with the race. (It\'s on Youtube.) Pretty thick brogue, but he appeared to be relaying what the Jockey Luan Machado had just told him, which was something caused East to switch leads. (He also bore out somewhat.)  If you watch the replay during the post finish gallop out East\'s cast of his fores looks a little funky. Watched the lane replay half a dozen times at least and can\'t detect much nor a loss of momentum. He was a tired horse and had every right to be. He held on gamely. He did not fold. That was a serious race and East is a serious horse.

Adding to the equation is that one of the cross pond horses declined his invite and Madaket Road gets in. When Madaket has tried to rate it hasn\'t worked well and now the Silver Vet will be in with Madaket, Citizen and Rodriquez. (He was treating to get Getaway Car in also, but that didn\'t work out!) Silver has treated them all together before however and its gonna be interesting because Citizen is a confirmed front-end animal. We\'ll see if the Vet has the ability to alter his own modus operandi. Will he \"Send\" a sacrificial animal at East? and if so, which will be sacrificed? If East stumbles, will the Vet sweep the results? You know he wants to redeem himself for the injustice heaped upon him. He wants to make it right. The betting public doesn\'t care. They are like the voting public: \"Just give me what I want.\"

Post Pedigree Analysis Tony has three horses with a Pedigree notation and he\'s sharing. Pedigree to factor horses:

Tappan Street
Luxor Cafe and
American Promise

By the way, Madaket Road\'s tail female pedigree has links to a TGraph oldie but goodie:  Super Frolic