Met Mile

[Michael D.]

sir shackleton - two for two in one turn miles. feb 3 negative \"2.5\" with trouble was a nice race. a repeat of that puts him close at the weights.

ghostzapper - any way you slice it, this is one of the fastest thoroughbreds ever to step foot on the race track. i think secretariat or \'bid would have run faster if given the trip this guy got on BC day, but he has three other extremely fast #\'s. if on top of his game, it\'s no contest. low odds the obvious issue.

love of money - last was decent, but still a bit slow, can he improve coming back on five days rest?

pomeroy - all of his routes have been slow. might be able to stretch his run to a mile, but i would need long odds.

silver wagon - nice back running sprinter. needs to race to collapse at the end, as he does tend to flatten a bit late. gets in light, and could pick up some pieces if the other fast ones get beat up chasing GZ.

forest danger - another brilliant animal. has two #\'s that put him among the fastest ever. when stretching from 7f to 1m last year he got nailed late as a 2/5 favorite. not sure if i want to take 2/1 on this guy trying the same trick this year, especially against GZ. if this race were 6f or 7f, i might take a shot, i don\'t think i will have him on top today though.

just as an odds play, i will take a shot with sir shackleton. have to box with GZ, and i will use all of the others equally underneath. good luck everybody!!

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Michael,

Sir Shackleton does have the best one turn mile number. You have to take note of that, but the problem is suspicion of one turn Gulfstream efforts/figures.

I believe Bejarano has a very nice clock in his head. Note the ride on Forest Danger last. He paced somewhat off the leaders and do you think it likely that pacing is what got him up? You can say \"oh he didnt pace, Forest Danger just ran his consistent pace race\". I don\'t know about that. Velasquez always seems to have FD more forwardly placed and Bejarano, at least to me, seems to get horses to relax a bit early. In this race, that could be in his favor. Still, the Hallandale races bother me. Both for Shack and Forest Danger.

A case can be made for all the horses. The easist way to win the race may be to eliminate those who CANT win. You never know, A handicapper can be wrong about these things but for wagering purposes the two that can\'t win are Ghostsprinter and Forest Danger.

That leaves four, Shack certainly has a chance and if he wins who would be surprised? But the other three look good too. The good thing about Love of money is that he\'s tested at distance and has not been lacking. He also gets to run light.

[Michael D.]

can\'t win? not ready to say that about any of these..... FD broke slow in his last race, and chased a wicked fast pace (he got to the half in about :44). over that surface, there was no way he was losing that race. i think the horse will struggle late, but in a six horse field, his brilliant speed might be enough to put them away by the eighth pole. i just can\'t take the low odds on him in this race. i\'m not confident that SS will repeat his 1m GP  run. a lot of horses have failed to run back to very fast 1m #\'s at GP. i just can\'t come up with any other angles in this six horse field. i\'m looking more at mth and LS today. BTW, anybody notice that stronach has put up a card that is much better than the NYRA card? his GP cards emabarrassed the aqu cards as well. seems like a trend to me. give me top class racing and i will take the stupid concert. you can have this NYRA crap.

[Michael D.]

one of the greatest ever no doubt. FD is a sprinter. SS klunks up for third.

[Silver Charm]

>one of the greatest ever no doubt

Do not disagree so why was he carrying 123 today?? That makes the result seem somewhat trivial.

What does he tote in the Suburban after this assuming it is still a Handicap

127 or 128.

[Michael D.]

TG includes weight in their figures, you should have figured this out by now. add more weight, he runs a few ticks slower, still gets the same #, and is still one of the greatest ever.

[Silver Charm]

>add more weight, he runs a few ticks slower

So another words he was assigned a weight package that if he ran his race there was no way he could lose.

Never realized that was how a true handicap was supposed work. Or was this a made for TV Exhibition.

SilverCharm,

I think the weight assignment was ridiculous, but somewhat understandable.

I don\'t think most racing secretaries are very speed figure oriented when it comes to weight assigments for handicaps. I think they are actually more \"class\" oriented. The weights tend to be more related to accomplishments on the track - things like who beats who by how much and how often. How many Grade 1 races you have won etc....  

Ghostzapper\'s reputation as a very superior horse comes mostly from his speed figures. On the racetrack, he had only 3 Grade 1 wins coming into today\'s race. I think you can also argue that the Voshburg was a weak Grade 1 and St Liam had yet to really distinguish himself at the time of the Woodward.

I\'m not trying diminish him. I bet him in the BC classic off those races and that field was obviously loaded. I\'m just saying that the racing secretary probably didn\'t look at his speed figures to get to 123. He also probably subtracted a little weight because it was his 1st race of the season and he probably wanted to make sure he would show up for this one and any other handicaps Frankel might be considering later in the season. ;-)



Post Edited (05-30-05 18:57)

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Silver Charm wrote:

> >one of the greatest ever no doubt
>
> Do not disagree so why was he carrying 123 today?? That makes
> the result seem somewhat trivial.
>
> What does he tote in the Suburban after this assuming it is
> still a Handicap
>
> 127 or 128.

Well, first off Point Given let me down in the Derby and took shots at him every race thereafter and never beat him. Maybe Ghostsprinter is gonna be that way.

Secondly, those that took a shot at him did so on the long layoff and some concern he may not be ready after the illness and all. That didn\'t work out, but no crying over split milk.

Thirdly, really and truly was this the weakest edition of the Met Mile ever and what did he beat? Forest Danger bounced. If Ghostsprinter didn\'t show up today big balloons. You have to take a shot now and then.