Probably didn't see this coming

[moosepalm]

It had to be one of the more improbable hitting-the-board trainer configurations in Triple Crown history.  A 77 and 85 year old sniffing this rarified air for the first time, and a relative kid, at 48, who has a three horse stable and career earnings of $1.5 million, which in some years, would barely be a good month for Todd Pletcher.  Great horses can level the playing field.

Gowan\'s horse was very impressive today.  He, not CC, was the horse I left off all my tickets.  I thought he was not going to break through his number, which appeared to be where he was stalled.  After the fact, it occurred to me that Borel\'s Derby ride might have cost him two points when you factor in the lateral ground covered at various points of his trip (does Trakus calculate sideways?), so he might have already had a small breakthrough.  Whether he did more running, today, than General A-Rod, is a matter for conjecture, but GAR made a remarkable recovery as Borel decided it was not enough just to put his own horse at a disadvantage today.

As for the winner, well done.  He may have been 1-2 on the tote, but on this, and other boards, he was a contrarian play, for reasons that were well articulated.  When my wife asked me about my intentions today, and I told her I was giving CC some tepid support, while others much sharper than I were leaving him off entirely, she was somewhat incredulous.  I then, naively, tried to explain that there were some mitigating factors in his success, not the least of which were performance-based numbers that suggested he might not be that much faster than some of his competitors, or perhaps not faster at all.  She said, \"I don\'t think he\'s racing to get a good number.  It looks like he gets all the number he needs.\"