Derby post-mortem

[covelj70]

I know I am super late with this but I am just now getting caught up with everything post last week.

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone for the awesome support and messages leading up to the Derby.  All of the support was really overwhemling and much appreciated.  It made an amazing experience even better and I really appreciated all of the messages on the board as well as TG PM\'s and emails and texts.  Amazing.

There are so many thigs I can say about the experience that I don\'t even know where to begin.  The entire week was about as much fun as someone who loves this game could have.  

My main goal of this post was to just thank everyone for their messages but I will throw out some of the biggest highlights/surprises of the week for me.

1) The trainers dinner and post draw were probably my favorite parts purely from a horse racing perspective.  The energy and tension running through the room during the post draw was palpable and seeing the trainers in a fun setting with the chance to joke with one another was really enjoyable as well.

2) The most fun part of the weekend was the Maxim party on Friday night where I got to sit next to RG3 who was very inquisitive about Falling Sky\'s chances (fortunately, I told him to bet on Orb so if he lost money on the Derby, it wasn\'t my fault!). I won\'t bother to list all of the athletes who were at the party because it would take up the whole post but it is amazing how much star power the Derby attracts. As an aside, a party that ends at 3am the night before the Derby is a bit much for this middle aged father of three!  

3) Hanging out on the backstretch every morning to watch the derby horses and the rest of my horses train was my favorite \"non scheduled\" part of the week.  On Tuesday afternoon, Jerry Bailey and Randy Moss wound up coming back to hang out and talk about the race for a long time.  I bring this up as I wanted to mention that Randy Moss is a huge fan of Jerry\'s.  When I told Randy I was a TG person, he jumped at the chance to tell our group that he was a huge fan of JB.  Nice to see guys that make their own figures don\'t automatically have to be mortal enemies.  Also, in response to all of the folks (mainly the media on Twitter) who were compalining that Jerry Bailey and Randy weren\'t discussing Wise Dan enough before that race, Randy warned us ahead of time that there were only given a few minutes to talk about the Woodford and he knew people would be upset about that given the star power in that race.

4) From a horse perspective, the biggest surprise for me was how Palice Malice ran.  he was training so well in the blinkers all week and moving so well and carrying such good weight that I didn\'t see him as a run off who would completely change the entire complexion of the race. That was a major disappointment.

5) under the guise of what could have been, I think Normandy Invasion ran a really nice race and Chad did a great job bringing this horse along and I don\'t think it will be long before Chad wins a Derby because I think he\'s that good of a trainer but if the horse would have been allowed to run to his natrual style of coming from well off the pace, he could have won the race or been right there.  There are many theories about the zippy breezes he had in the weeks leading up to the race but I think it\'s tough to change a horses running style before the Derby if that was indeed the goal of the fast early fractions in his breezes.  Hindsight being 20/20, if everyone had known it would be the 4th fastest pace in derby history, alot of things would have been handled differently (and we would have likely never entered the race in the first place).  MAybe the horse was just so fresh and feeling so good that there wasn\'t alot that could be done about the fast early fractions in the breezes or the blowout work on Thursday before the race.

6) Verazzano ran like he trained in the week leading up to the race.  It\'s a shame the Derby wasn\'t early in the spring because I think he is the best horse of the crop but he was very clearly over the top by the time the Derby came along.  It\'s a good reminder of how these horses change from month to month and week to week and why it\'s never a good idea to be too dogmatic about a horse being \"the horse\" too long before the Derby.  Nothing is really settled until the final days before the race when you see who is thriving down there and who isn\'t.  Pick a small group of horses that you think are fast enough to win (in this case the group that had run 2 negatives in their preps) and then decide which ones are doing well in the days leading up to the race and which ones aren\'t.  I think that\'s the key to playing the Derby.

7) Finally, the part that I am still chuckling about is that once it was obvious that all of the front runners were buried by the early pace (especially us), I quickly turned from owner to gambler and started pulling for Orb for the sake of all my futures bets.  I had PM\'d MJ last week mentioning that a possible scenario at the wire was me screaming for Orb while my horse was finishing up the track.  I was sort of kidding about that but it actually played out that was in reality as when I was jumping up and down at the wire for Orb, the guy in the box in front of us turned around and said \"but I thought you were one of the owners of Falling Sky?\" \'

Great time, great game, great conversations on this board (when it\'s about horses).

Thanks again to all

[TGJB]

6) a very big part of handicapping the Derby.

Randy is a great guy, knows the game, and knows figures. I get along with Andy too, and I had a good time with Jerardi some years ago at a function. There\'s only one outfit I don\'t get along with, and they don\'t get along with anybody.

[mjellish]

To back up what Jim said, he did tell me before the race that he may be the first owner of a KY Derby starter to actually cheer louder for someone else\'s horse because of the way he bet the race.

That was good stuff buddy.  Hope you mixed the 4 in on your tickets.