Lone Sailor

[bluechip21]

Looking at the derby sheets and comparing them with the sheets of prior derby horses who jumped in the exotics, I think I’m starting to come around to Lone Sailor as a candidate to come off the pace and hit the board at a price.

He paired his 2YO top in the allowance race in February and then came back to run a new top in the LA Derby, which is encouraging considering the timing and that he didn’t appear to fan out too wide.

... is this a kind of pattern we’re looking for or would it be better to consider other prices such as a horse like Combatant, who is running consistent, competitive numbers his last three races? (that is, compared to Lone Sailor’s top, not to the big guns)  

Thanks everyone.

[RICH]

Blue

He is about the 12th fastest, off a bi/bo, took awhile to get to that 2yr old top, needs to jump at least 2 pts and not go wide, and there are a lot better lines than this one in this race, seems up against it to me.

[johnnym]

Check the archives compare patterns from horses that are closers like him.
You may be a bit surprised
Good luck

[bluechip21]

Thanks for your response. I appreciate your quick, while also detailed  explanations for why you dissagree, especially since you did not come off pretenscious or curmudgeonly. I’m trying to get better at playing the sheets and unfortunately I don’t have many other places to go with respect to ehancing my understanding and application of sheet theory. So I use this forum somewhat as a mentor for me to achieve this.

[mjellish]

See the Archives and look at Golden Soul, Commanding Curve, Make Music For Me, etc.  Those are some deep closers who had non competitive numbers who hit the superfecta fairly recently.  There are more.

Thing is, IMO, so many of the colts with the best numbers tend to have some speed and are able to secure a decent position early on and get a decent trip.  But there are some who are used to getting it that way, but dont in the ky derby because there is no margin for error.  They get off poorly or get bumped hard at the start, some due to bad luck, some because they are over the top and due for or a bounce, and some are just out quicked.  But they suddenly find they’re behind horses getting the kickback in their face and this is a situation they have never been in before.  They often run off races.

Seems like the late runners are usually able to relax and run their race, but then are at the mercy of the early pace and getting through the traffic.  Ice Box maybe would have won back 2010, for example.  But he had competitive numbers going in.  Exaggerator had good numbers too but Nyquist beat him on the square.

So what kind of early pace do you expect?  I would start by asking that.

[Airnate012]

With Quip bypassing for the Preakness, I believe the pace got a little softer...I\'m predicting 23/46/111...The deep closers still have a decent shot to hit the bottom of the super this year IMO, but I had the same feeling in 2016 when SBN missed it by a nostril..crushing my hopes and dreams.

[KeithB]

His sheet reminds me of Paddy O\'Prado in 2010 and Proud Citizen in 2002.