What a Light Weight

[kev]

GZ could win his 4 races this year and maybe one on the grass and your still going to have people saying he shouldnt be a great one, just a real good horse. Two reasons, the good old days, and people just don\'t like Bobby F.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Race time is getting close, lets not go over the B.C. Classic meltdown again. Its just not worth the time right now.

Regarding Forest Danger\'s figs, theres no doubt he caught consecutive mother of all greased lightning strips in his last two. That 1.14.44 was monumentally fast. (A track Record) This was something I was not aware of earlier and its incumbant to acknowledge oversight in deliberating Tgraph\'s \"rescoring\" upon that race. After reviewing the card more carefully you have to be inclined to believe Forest Danger ran very fast.

Which is not to concede April 9th at Aqueduct is as fast as everyone seems to think. If it is and Forest Danger is sitting on paired negative fours your point is noted. What if he\'s sitting on paired negative 2\'s however or even a negative 4, negative 2....does that put him in an 0-2 race position? (Caveat note Pletchers race spacing this year after a long layoff)

Just finished TGraphs ROTW and agree that  a horse which bears consideration is Silver Wagon. TGraph gave him an X rail you have to be inclined to believe it certainly was that day. This is a good horse that has had some misfortune. Hes got the potential (you always need luck) to pull it off or perhaps make it pay. Pomeroy looks to be sitting on his best race too.

If Ghostzapper doesnt win this race against marginal competition by 6 lengths he\'s not great. If he gets beat, hes a sham.



Post Edited (05-29-05 13:45)

[mikemd]

i really don\'t understand the frankel hater vibe here.  whatever.  this horse has put up some monster numbers.  several of them in fact.

as far as monday:

i think the morning line is dead on.  i may take a small stand against gz in the pick four because he will much worse than morning line in those pools.  if he wins, i\'ll just enjoy the show.

[Silver Charm]

>Because if he did, he would realize that >GZ has run the two fastest figures every >on T-Graph and a few others in the top 20.

So why then is he only carrying 123 pounds. Someone is wrong here, who is it??

GZ is giving 9 pounds too a horse whose last win was in a 2X and is trained by Ralph Zadie. Can not believe that Secretariat wouldn\'t be giving at least 19 pounds or maybe even 90.

>but the fact is that GZ is something special.

I know what something special is when I see it. I will let you know when GZ does something remotely close to that.

In same sentence Frankel compared GZ to Secretariat he said he was going to put GZ on grass.

After that comment I hope it doesn\'t come from his own personal stash.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Silver Charm wrote:

> In same sentence Frankel compared GZ to Secretariat he said he
> was going to put GZ on grass.
>
> After that comment I hope it doesn\'t come from his own personal
> stash.
>

lmao

Secretariat didn\'t need drugs.

If he wins by six tomorrow, we can start talking great. Is the Woodward handicap or weight for age? I can\'t remember. The Whitney is weight for age if i remember correctly

[jimbo66]

By all means, all-knowing Silver Charm, please let the rest of us plebes know when GZ has done something special, since you know what this is, but the rest of us don\'t.

I see this is coming from the same guy who said that Lukas entered Going Wild in the Derby on behalf of Tabor, then re-entered in the Preakness despite TAbor\'s horse being on the sidelines.  And then had the audacity to scoff at the rest of the people on this board for not seeing his \"crystal clear\" logic....

The horse is extremely fast from 7 furlongs to 1 1/4.  He won the BC Classic easily, which is supposed to the top race in this country.  Yes, he should carry more weight in the Met Mile, but unfortunately he is not, maybe some type of pressure from Frankel on the racing secretary, who knows.  But the horse is the fastest horse in this generation according to all the figure makers.  

Clown, you are doing it again.  \"What if Forest Danger is sitting on paired negative 2\'s and not negative 4\'s\".  He isn\'t.  What if GZ\'s top is really negative 4 and then he paired that in the Woodward.  Not pairing negative 6\'s bit actually negative 4\'s.  What if Silver Wagon is sitting on a top of negative 6?  

What is with all the \"what if\'s\"?  Why come on this board and start questioning figures WITHOUT proof?  If you have any, supply it, my guess is that you will get an answer.  Otherwise, analyze the race based on the figures.  FD has paired up negative 4\'s.  GZ has run as fast as negative 6, but off the layoff, with a hole drilled in his head, with bigger goals in front of him, is he likely to fire negative 6 tomorrow?  Probably not.  Considering he is spotting FD 5 pounds and recency, a win tomorrow by any margin is a solid win.

[kev]

SC is one of those cats who won\'t let go of the good old days. I\'m telling ya, there\'s some people that won\'t admit great horses of this time, cause there hanging onto something from the past. SC let me ask you this, has there been any horses in the past 10 years that could be called great, or like you say \"something special\" ?? I love when people knocks CIGAR, or SKIP AWAY. CIGAR ran in 15 G1\'s, his record 15-11-2-1 just in G1\'s. Give me some names of the old great ones??

[richiebee]

Whether GZ is an \"immortal\" or deserves a place in history is fun to debate, because there is no tangible way of determining how he would fare against the great ones of the past,so the debate could continue into infinity.

No question that GZ relishes the big oval at Belmont. GZ\'s past efforts at Bel in the Vosburgh and Tom Fool lead me to believe that he would be favored in, and could win, the BC Sprint.

It is this type of versatility that makes GZ unique if not immortal. I remember in the early 1980s that Olden Times still held the track record for 7/8s of a mile at Churchill(set in 1964, I believe) and also held the 1-3/4 mile turf track record at Santa Anita. Today it seems like our stars are specialists-- sprinters, milers, marathoners--and GZs ability to be competitive sprinting and routing at the highest level is something we rarely see.

Give credit to Stronach for keeping him in training for 4 years, and to Frankel for keeping him together.

In the Met, Forest Danger\'s last race was fast, but he couldn\'t have gotten a better pace set up behind the dueling Don Six and Medallist. D Six came back and was beaten by a NY bred in an open stake and Medallist came back injured. I would usually try to beat a 1/2 proposition in this spot, but this is GZs favored surface and he should be carrying no less than 128 lbs.

The unfortunate part of the light weight assigned GZ is that if he was carrying 128 or more, more owners/trainers may have been willing to take a shot in this race.

[Silver Charm]

>By all means, all-knowing Silver Charm, please let the rest of us plebes know when GZ has done something special, since you know what this is, but the rest of us don\'t.

Jimbo glad to see you have finally found your identity....and mine too. I have explained the Lukas, Tabor angle on Derby Day once, that\'s all you get.

The Racing Secretary tells me GZ is NOT a Great Horse. I believe him.

So far GZ has won TWICE going two turns, once at Monmouth where he beat MonicaLewinsky and once at Lone Star Park. Both are considered extreme speed-favoring strips. In the Lone Star race the pace was negotiated in the paddock before the race.

If those are the quality\'s of a Great Horse in your book so be it, not mine.When Mineshaft won Horse of the Year he had a far better record than GZ did last year. He was on the edge of being called a Great Horse but like a lot of them left too soon. Cigar and Skip Away would certainly fit into category. They weren\'t afraid to show up and run anywhere and they carried the pounds too boot.

So far GZ has done neither.

[big18741]

While I think Ghostzapper should be carrying more weight in the Met,I find it useless to compare him to any horses that aren\'t from the present period for obvious reasons.If the playing field were level then it might be a worthwhile debate.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Silver Charm wrote:

> If those are the quality\'s of a Great Horse in your book so be
> it, not mine.When Mineshaft won Horse of the Year he had a far
> better record than GZ did last year. He was on the edge of
> being called a Great Horse but like a lot of them left too
> soon. Cigar and Skip Away would certainly fit into category.
> They weren\'t afraid to show up and run anywhere and they
> carried the pounds too boot.
>
> So far GZ has done neither.

There can\'t be much of an issue here. Ghostzapper is carrying 123 pounds. Thats a feather. If he doesnt win this edition of the Met Mile by 6 lengths in 1.33.0 he sucks. He ran a 1.59 at Lonestar right? Another Negative 4! Its a no brainer. No contest.

He\'ll burn right to the front and eyeball them with his class. He\'ll put fear and intimidation into this sorry field with a glance of his all knowing eye. He\'ll pound down the stretch increasing his lead at every mark. Remember the B.C. Classic? he ran the last quarter in 23.64:

23.42, 47.00, 1:11.32, 1:35.38, 1:59.02

This is no ordinary horse. This horse is Great. This horse is the fastest of ALL TIMES. He\'s the ALL TIMES greatest horse of da World. How dare you long term handicappers not acknowledge the majesty of Ghostsprinter da Giantkiller. Bow down and pray to your equine God. Back your icon at the windows with both hands. When a horse can\'t lose 40 centavo on da dollar is like stolen money. Its free money baby.



Post Edited (05-30-05 11:48)

I think there are two problems with having overly high expectations for GZ for today.

1. Frankel or no Frankel, it is very difficult to get a horse ready to win a \"high quality\" Grade 1 race off a long layoff. IMO, there\'s a MASSIVE difference between getting a horse ready to fire close to his best figure in a Grade 2 prep race against comparative bums and getting him ready to fire his absolute best figure in the Met Mile where the pace is almost certain to tough and demanding and several horses are budding stars.

2. I would not underrate either Love of Money or Forest Danger. Both of them are lightly raced budding stars.

If GZ wins today, IMO it won\'t matter much if he runs a -1 or a -4 to do it. There\'s no way this horse is 100% today even if he\'s fit enough to run a -6 against garbage cans or when a race falls apart in front of him (which could happen today).  

IMO, it would probably be better training to bring him back running a -2 and accept the result than having him sharp enough to put up a -4 or faster trying to win.

[Silver Charm]

Class there is one more you left out.

Frankel was on an 0 for 20 streak at Hollywood until he won yesterday. Frankel is winning at 15.1% over the last 90 days since a lot of the major testing procedures have been implemented. A far cry from the 26-28% he had been winning at over the last two years.