Derby Fav

[Fairmount1]

Essential Quality obviously goes as your Derby fav.  I think he gets beat for reasons I won\'t post now.  

I expect Rock Your World to take a LOT of money and deservedly so.  

Super Stock with a rail ride in Ark Derby that may not get a big TG number but one I will use pending post position draw.

Those are the two that interest me the most for the win spot rn

[Agastache]

Hoping Caddo River goes to help spice up the pace, which is something recent runnings have sorely missed. Very interested to see numbers for Hot Rod Charlie, Highly Motivated, Known Agenda and even Super Stock now. Think all will benefit from a faster than par pace.

[ajkreider]

Think Super Stock gets a good fig.  Would expect something only a couple of points worse than what By My Standards will get.

[Fairmount1]

From what I gather, Beyer and Timeform have it slower than By My Standards by a touch and way slower than Following Sea fwiw (Following Sea was a Baffert Runhappy sired horse for his new fav client Spendthrift in a MSW 6f race run 5 hours earlier).

[ajkreider]

That latter race was a sprint that, time wise, stacks up well against the CZ Rocket race.  Not really comparable to the two turn races.

TG will likely have a bigger gap between BMS and the Arky winner, because of weight and trip, but the former is a quality older stakes horse.

[TGJB]

Standards was wide, Asmussens 3yo saved ground. Trips about 3 points different.

Second/third 3yos figure to be 4ish, so winner should be 3ish.

[boardedup]

Is anyone willing to give CT another shot?  Had a nice progressing pattern coming in, if he won he’d likely been second choice, now he’ll be left for dead.  Neither Baffert’s ran their A race today.  I don’t know, I’m not completely jumping ship yet, even though you could make the argument that he’s yet to run “fast” and gave up the ghost in deep stretch.

As of today I’m not interested in the “champ” at all.  Charlie and TAP’s A team impressed.  BB’s haven’t for the most part but feel like they’ll be their “rebraking” selves once they get to KY.

[jbelfior]

I would be very surprised if Concert Tour was in the gate on May 1.

Ditto Caddo River.


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[johnnym]

I can’t see a Derby without a Baffert entry.
I had Caddo River in the race thought he ran hard and came back on C.T.
Could he have a move forward in him?

My top two are the same as Fairmont1
With Known Agenda nipping on there heals.

Looking for the underneath bombers.

GL and nice to see some action on the board.

[statuette]

Johnnym what do you make of Midnight Bourbon chances?

[confused]

Did I miss something?  Medina Spirit will be there, no?  But he can\'t beat any of the contenders.  Of BB\'s contenders only Life is Good ran fast....the others not so fast.

[jbelfior]

Medina Spirit?

Thinking he\'s running, no?


Good Luck,
Joe B

[johnnym]

Forgot about him
But he seems to run his best race on the lead and not stalking.

[johnnym]

First thought,I would like to see better late pace figures.
He seems more of a forward placed horse.

But pace is not really discussed in these parts.

Side note: I wonder how much these horses have been babied with the lasix issue.
Now they are being tightened going further with more weight.

GL

[Fairmount1]

\"GL and nice to see some action on the board.\"

Even the most hardened of horse players that see where drugs have taken the game, can still get some Derby fever!  Especially when BB doesn\'t have them over a barrel.  Although last year\'s \"training job\" with getting a horse that couldn\'t run the Haskell distance to stretch out to the Derby distance and win always makes one nervous of the rabbits he can pull out of a hat.  Generally, everyone can see whatever he does works best when sent hard to the lead just like Arrogate at the Travers several years back.  MS and CT weren\'t able to or didn\'t do that in their last preps.  

All that being said, I don\'t think Baffert can win with MS or CT (if he even runs CT which I doubt) and thus it makes it a more attractive betting race for me if I have any other strong opinions besides that one.