California Beyers

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Rock Hard Ten

Congrats

Borrego

Grand Reward

That\'ll pay...lol
I wish I had one of them.

I guess that was an empathetic move to the top of the division.

[jimbo66]

I guess he is not \"over-rated\" and the ROTW jinx continues.  About 30 weeks now since a winner....

CTC,

LOL.

To me, the whole thing was wide open after St Liam. Nothing would have shocked me other than maybe Truly a Judge being able to get 10F with other speeds like St Liam in the race. I guess Grand Reward is pretty shocking also.

The winner looked pretty good. I could never take him at that price because I thought St Liam had at least 50% of the race to himself, but IMHO, he was the horse most likely to improve. He\'s a fairly lightly raced just turned 4YO running for Mandella this year after having an interrupted schedule last year. People have been high on this horse for a long time for a lot of good reasons even though he hadn\'t proved it yet.    

Did Imperialism run at all?

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

well...did Congrats get that much better than Truly a Judge and Lundy\'s Liability on the extra furlong?  Or did Mandella have them pointed for this one. Mandella is not nearly as good away from Santa Anita, which is not to say RHT didn\'t just disprove the doubting Thomases.  I didn\'t like Saint Liam at the distance, but it doesnt matter if you dont cash.

[miff]

Imperialism, no that a \"phony wide\" fig garbage pail didn\'t run a step.

CTC,

You know what else is pretty interesting.

www.pacefigures.com

had RHT with the top figure coming in. He had a final time figure of 107, but he rated the race superior to that because the pace of the Strub was so fast that RHT had used himself hard at the midpoint of that race even though he was a closer.

I agree with him that the Strub was a brutal pace. I think it makes a lot of sense to wait for Love of Money out of that race. Love of Money ran super to hang on for 3rd that day after that Strub pace.

Imperialism was less likely to move forward than RHT even though he was also a just turned 4YO. He\'s had many more races and he wasn\'t interupted in his campaign like RHT. He\'s got a bad style no matter how you slice it...especially in a big field. Those deep closers are always tough to take.

[miff]

Class,

Do you mean RHT had a better fig coming in than SL?

miff,

Yes.

I know it\'s somewhere between difficult and impossible to believe that, but it is true.

He had the final time figure slightly slower than Beyer 107 vs. 109. However, he rated RHT\'s overall performance a 111 because of his big move into that very hot pace.

He gave SL a final time figure of 113, but because he ran a slower pace figure, he rated the performance a 109.

I am a big fan of this kind of stuff, but IMHO, St Liam\'s overall performace level has been miles better than RHTs.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Yeah, I know he had a decent pace figure. So did Imperialism though. I thought Strub day was a better day than some did and gave Love of Mom lots of credit for his pace effort.

Congrats on evaluating RHT as a horse with big potential. He\'s a big horse and he did it the way the best distance horses do. I\'ve been very skeptical of him but he\'s proven me wrong. The truth of these things have to be acknowledged. He\'s a Grade I winner at 10 marks, theres not a lot that can say that. Maybe he can go on and meet Eddington, Roses and Ghostzapper in November and settle it. He\'s won three in a row under Mandella, so hes got him going the right way.

The time looked good to me. The track was slow. I suppose I\'m gonna be wrong about DeClans now.

[miff]

Class,

I looked at the pace figs.It looks like he\'s BIASED to hot early paces and somewhat less concerned with the last 3/8ths(which I am equally concerned about)

I agree that RHT has not performed nearly as well as SL.One note, if you did not know,RHT is a well balanced, very correct horse with big time looks. His physical attributes makes me think he could get real good if he stays sound.

I can\'t wait to see the Beyer figure for this one. I don\'t plan on voicing any opinions though. It\'s too time consuming. I\'ll voice my opinions at the windows. :-)

I\'d guess it\'s going to be similar or slightly better than the last one. Those were still some very slow horses behind him and he didn\'t crush them.

I still don\'t think RHT has any chance against an in shape Ghostzapper or RIM. But I do think he has a reasonable chance to move forward at least one more time.

miff,

I agree.

I am a long suffering RHT fan. I saw his debut and 2nd start and was instantly convinced he was \"potential\" star. It was always only \"potential\" though.

His career is better than it looks though.

How many horses just miss in the SA Derby in just their 3rd start and then run fairly well in the Preakness in their 4th?

The Belmont was a debacle, but that was 12 furlongs and he dueled a vastly superior  horse in a hot pace. It was a horrendous trip.  

He came back fine and then something obviously went wrong at MTH because he ran dreadfully. He couldn\'t be that bad. He went sour. So they stopped on him. That was a good move.

He never really had a chance to develop.

This year he was handled perfectly by Mandella. His first race was nothing special but he got the job done. That was obviously just a prep. The 2nd race was better (no matter how fast you believe it really was and I still don\'t know for sure).

I thought he was fairly likely to run better, but IMO he had a lot of ground to make up on St Liam. I could never take 7-2 on him there when I was giving 50% of the race to St Liam.  

I\'ve been saying the same things about this horse for the last 3-4 months. You can read lot of my back posts.

[Michael D.]

RHT exploded. nice race, fast time. imp was too extended last race. he needs some rest. i should have realized that.... i only have one lasting thought on the race - gary stevens is a brilliant jock.


GO DECLAN!!!!!!!!

[TGJB]

Jimbo-- no matter how you cut it, the 1/29 Sunshine Millions ROTW was a \"winner\", if there is such a thing. As for this week, I put knocks on the first FOUR favorites, three of whom did not crack the top five finishers, and made it clear I liked the 14-1 shot who ran second, a lot. Did I myself cash? No. But was this a \"loser\"? Hmmm...

CH-- This race will probably come up about neg 2 or 3, which actually would be around Beyer 109. But you do agree this was a better effort than the Strub-- I assume.

RHT ran well, but let\'s be realistic, guys. Figures aside, as I pointed out before the race, all the horses in the race save one had proven to be far short of top quality when racing against the East Coast horses, and the one good one did not fire.