SMARTY WILL LOSE THE BELMONT

[johnny u]

THe Smile and Elusive Quality breeding is going to get to this animal at 12 furlongs...the mud helped him in KY and Rock Hard Ten was not helped by his pre-gate antics and besides the Preakness was a PREP for this horse that looks and is bred to be the Belmont winner.

Oh yeah, here\'s the best part...Smarty is going to have so much sentimental money on him that he very well may be 1 to 9...very max will be 1 to 5...that makes Rock Hard Ten like 7 to 1 or higher...I give Rock Hard a better than 60 percent chance to pull this off...VALUE, VALUE, VALUE!!!

[gambino]

Rock hard regressed with a beyer of only 100?
His previous beyer was a 103?
Smarty runs a 118,he\'s two zip codes away?
I\'m with you on the thinking and may take a stab with the cliff\'s edge.
Rested and capable of running a 115-120 beyers while being a closer at 1.5 miles.

[jbelfior]

SMARTY will definitely need to relax more early in the race. If he does,then he will make the same move that BET TWICE made in the \'87 BELMONT and it will be all over.

Johnny U: I think we all need to put that ELUSIVE QUALITY thing aside from now on. It obviously is no longer a factor.

OPEN QUESTION: Was EDDINGTON just prepping for a race over a track where he had 3 consecutive brilliant breezes,or am I giving \"no clue\" Henning too much credit for that possibility??



Good Luck,
Joe B.

[shanahan]

there\'s value, hopefully, behind smarty.  As a relative novice (just a player since the mid-90\'s), I have not seen a horse - except cigar -completely destroy fields of otherwise good animals.  I tried and tried to figure out a way he could not win Saturday or in the Derby - there isn\'t.  And the elusive quality comments , compared to sychophantic talk of biancone\'s miler, have no historical context yet...so why bother?  EQ gets routers at 17%+ at this early in the game, let it go...the dam throws routers too, get over it.  My gut is that there is a certain AP Indy 3 yr old, running this wkend, that will show us if he can finish 2nd to smarty on his home track.  And I believe it was a 70-1 sot who won Belmont after winning on Preakness undercard recently also...I think there is value behind smarty...even at 2-5.

[twoshoes]

Rock Hard Ten is a big, gorgeous animal who looked mighty small in Stew Elliott\'s rear view mirror Saturday. Can Smarty get beat in the Belmont? Absolutely. The wheels could come right off after that string of huge efforts though I must admit visually he didn\'t look cooked Saturday. Do I expect anyone from the Preakness will turn the tables on him after that trouncing? No - no more so than I expected any horse behind Funny Cide in last year\'s Preakness would do so at Belmont. The difference is I don\'t think there is an Empire maker or Ten Most Wanted laying in wait this year. We\'l have to wait and get a look at the field to see who\'s most likely. Who knows - maybe they\'ll let Pleasantly Perfect or Dale Earnhardt Jr. enter.

[TGJB]

I have bet against every single horse trying for the TC since 1977, when I was still using Ragozin, and it has turned out to be a pretty good idea-- in fact, I\'m pretty sure I haven\'t used one on a ticket. But I\'ll tell you what-- in none of those situations was the horse this much faster than everyone else going in, and I\'m not just talking top to top, which is what the term usually means on this site. SJ has 4 numbers 2 lengths or more (at this distance) better than the best of the next best horse of his generation, and the 2 horses that ran even that close to his off races are either not going or unlikely to run that well. In general, I have found that (on dirt, anyway) when a horse is capable of running his top at 1 1/8th he can almost always handle any distance, and certainly the last 2 make the distance a non-issue-- if he packs it in through the stretch it will be because of those closely spaced efforts finally taking their toll. I probably will find someone to bet, but I\'m pretty sure I won\'t be leaving SJ off my tickets.

Re Beyer-- as I said a few weeks ago, he blew the Rebel figure because he simply didn\'t believe it. With the big gap behind SJ and the other routes at Pimlico he was in position to get it right this time. Ragozin blew the figure for the race before the Rebel, but that was a very tricky one, and I almost went that way myself-- I was very happy to see not just SJ run big,but others out of that race pair up right away. I told Walden back in March that the Arkansas crew were the best in the country and no one was talking about them, and took a shot at buying two of them (Pro Prado and another) to no avail.

[Dana]

The Belmont is the true test of the champion, and we\'ve seen enough examples in recent years of just how hard it is to win the thrid jewel in the crown, but that being said, I have a very hard time seeing anyone come up with a logical reason why Smarty won\'t win it all, or, more accurately, which other three year old is going to beat him.

His performance in the Preakness was truly amazing, mostly because he\'s not just good, but so much better, more mature, more professional than all his peers.

That horse does anything you ask him to do -- period. Eight different distances, all kinds of tracks, sloppy, fast, winter, summer -- nothing bothers him.

He\'s an absolute freak and enough breeding experts of which I most certainly am not one
have looked deep into his pedigree and he has super breeding for the classic races including the mile and a quarter derby (look for Frank Mitchell\'s recent column in the DRF for a closer look at his pedigree)
and mile and half Belmont, so get those illusions about his pedigree out of your minds. That\'s absolute nonsense.

What is going to change in the next three weeks? Some three-year old is going to come out of nowhere and rise up and assert his dominance in the mile and half Belmont Stakes? How is that going to happen? If it\'s any of the horses we\'ve already seen, they\'re going to have to show something they haven\'t shown yet -- maybe the Cliff\'s Edge\'s Blue Grass would be legit, but other than that race -- who could you possibly come up???

Did you see the way he galloped out in the Preakness??? Unbelieveable.

Servis just has to keep him together for three more weeks, and he seems like the kind of horse who\'s so well-balanced and takes care of himself, that he should be OK -- that\'s the only thing that could go wrong -- him getting hurt or not getting there.


Let\'s start looking at the exacta in the Belmont -- which colt might wind up in the distant rear view mirror view of Stewie Elliot??? That, my friends, is the question.

[jbelfior]

I keep thinking that this guy runs too hard from gate to wire to make it through the 1 1/2 around the Belmont oval. With SJ\'s running style, you ned to relax early in the race in order to get the trip.

Then I start thinking about what a freak he is and all the handicapping methods dealing with what it takes to win the BELMONT go out the window. Besides,there\'s no other 3 yo. good enough to beat him. There will have to be a major regression for any possibility of an upset. If SJ runs even close to any of his races this year, no one else is capable of stepping up their game to that level to deny him.


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

The strip could certainly get Smarty. Theres been plenty of horses that haven\'t liked Belmont.

I think Rock Hard Ten is a good horse and liable to improve next, but I\'m not so sure he\'s the horse to challenge Smarty. He was a little vulnerable late in the Santa Anita Derby and Eddington was getting to him in the Preakness. Smarty picked up a full second plus on him in the stretch. Zito is apparently going Belmont loaded for Bear.

[clark]

New Age Handicapping 101 :

Step One - Identify the fastest horses on the planet.
Okay, that would be Pleasantly Perfect, M D\' Oro, Mineshaft, Candy Ride, and say Perfect Drift.

Step Two - Identify the horse in todays race that has a legitimate shot to not run dead last in a race consisting of all horses from Step One.

If Step Two yields no horse, resort to traditional handicapping methods.

If Step Two does yield a horse, proceed to cash win ticket after win ticket on said horse, single said horse in all multi-race wagers,  and focus any further traditional handicapping efforts on bottom portions of exotic plays.

Final Exam will be June 5th.

Class dismissed.



Post Edited (05-17-04 16:47)

[asfufh]

Johnny U; Please throw me in the briar patch again (and also please leave out SJ in the Pic3\'s and4\'s again). Asfufh
PS: Also, TGJB please give us outstanding sheets for the 3 races preceding the Belmont again!

[Mall]

In addition to the ones already mentioned, I\'m not sure I would completely dismiss Tapit\'s chances. One other horse which very few people are talking about & which also might be able to beat Smarty is Dermott Weld\'s Relaxed Gesture. The \"gesture\" which was the most remarkable to me Sat is one that I have never seen before at any TC or other race. There was organized cheering, such as you see at a college football game, for SJ in Section 2 for a good portion of the hr long wait for the big race. Smarty really has captured the hearts & imaginations of racing fans, & I\'m already envious of those who will be there on the 5th. There is nothing in the world of sports which can hold a candle to what will take place that day if Smarty wins, & my advice is that anyone who does have the opportunity to be there take advantage of it. Besides, you might be surprised how much spotty to no cell coverage, together with ancient betting machines which make it next to impossible to bet tris & supers, can boost your roi, a lesson I re-learned for the 100th or so time again at Old Hilltop.

I think it\'s pretty clear this is the best horse to come into the Belmont trying for a triple crown in a long time. He\'s certainly a lot better than some of the recent ones.

He was very good right from the beginning of his career.

He moved forward as you would hope.

He has brilliance, but is rateable.

He is not missing a thing....other than of course the questions about his pedigee and ability to get 12 furlongs.

I\'m not 100% convinced about his stamina to go 12 furlongs yet. I\'ve seen plenty of horses look good at 9 and 10 furlongs and not run well at 12 furlongs.

Heck, just last year a lot of people were questioning Funny Cide\'s stamina going into  the Derby and after he got it, 12 furlongs became a non-issue - which I thought was preposterous.    

Usually they tip a stamina problem off through their figures or visually. Either, they will decline or not improve much off their big figures at shorter distances as they stretch out and time passes when they should be moving forward. Sometimes you will visually be able to see them shorten stride a little late in some of their races when tested a bit.

I haven\'t seen that from SJ yet, but I think it\'s a mistake to automatically assume he gets 12 furlongs when you make your odds line.  He deserves to be a heavy favorite, but not an automatic.

This is still a big speed horse that was wiring sprints in 44.1. THere are not too many horses with a profile like that and a sprint pedigree that want 12 furlongs.

One thing I am 100% certain of.

If he loses, there will be a big debate about whether he lost because he bounced after so many tough races or whether he didn\'t want 12 furlongs. I think it will be  the latter (IF he loses). I think Servis has done a masterful job with this horse. He looks great, is running great, has not been abused in the mornings and always without fail fires a big shot. This horse is going to run a big race in 3 weeks for at least 10 furlongs. :-)

[johnny u]

Smarty\'s chances of winning this race are clearly good...the payout will be horrble...you can argue his chances are between 20% to maybe 70%, yet you payout will be 10% max...believe me, this horse will be POUNDED ON at the windows...his chances are NOT 90% or better as his odds will indicate...look eleswhere and cover yourself with $2 souvenier tixx that you can sell on ebay for 20 bucks that next day...easy money all around...and yes I do think breeding is a factor in this equation...RHT is brewd for it Smarty is NOT end of story...i realize how brilliant Smarty has been thus far and he may continue to freak...whats that old saying, a fool and his money...thnik VALUE, VALUE, VALUE for this years Belmont and it is not Smarty and it not keying him on top and hoping for the rest to suck up second.

[MO]

Many great points here, but this is a FREAK we are dealing with folks, and the Belmont will be a \"pass\" bettingwise because this horse deserves to be 2-5 morning line and 1-9 post time. You cannot beat this horse unless he falls down. \"Can\'t get the distance you say?\" There isn\'t a horse in the race proven at the distance (unless Weld\'s horse has). A bounce to a 0 will easily beat these evenly matched garbage cans. Exacta\'s? You have to single one horse to get any value, and even then, the exacta will likely pay less than 10 bucks because there will most likely be a field of 7 or less. There is absolutely no value in the race and no point in trying to beat him. Just watch the race, hope he makes history. He deserves it.