Revenge of the hardboots

[MO]

I just remembered why I quit gambling 5 years ago. Damn, my head hurts..........

[sabowen]

I\'m trying to understand the thread of this conversation, but if I\'m not mistaken, are you saying the results of this farce of a Derby are due to drugging scrutiny?  This needs fixing! (pardon the pun).

[Uncle Buck]

\"Meanwhile, anybody catch Donna Brothers reporting that AA had been taking to another stall to be hosed down?\"

TGJB

I watched a replay of the entire show last night and about 60 minutes prior to post time, yes, Brothers said this \"I\'m standing outside the barn of Afleet Alex who\'s not here right now. He\'s over at another barn getting his pre-race bath.\"

[JimP]

Buck: I don\'t think she said \"another barn\". I\'m pretty sure it was \"another stall\".

[miff]

Re Afleet Alex,

Another barn or another stall,so what? Oh, I get it, that\'s when they juiced him with the whole world all around the place.Juice is just another excuse for the dogma file.

[cubfan0316]

dont you think the threat of testing was a factor? the last thing a high profile trainer needs is his horse testing positive and getting tossed out of the winners circle. news at 10, zitos horses run 1-5 ,but all failed their tests.purse money refunded and the derby will be rerun......

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Theres a theory here that the new Graded Stakes supertest played a role in the results. I don\'t know with certainty when it was implemented. Gathered from threads probably during the Turfway Park meet. However they ran Keeneland with the Supertrainers doing their thing, so I dont understand the implication.

I think Bounce played a large role. I think the Apocalypse horses all bounced. Once you got by them there were quite a few that could move up. The other issue was pace. It took out horses like High Fly and High Limit, though high limit didnt seem to pick up a foot.

Others were just plain overated and had little chance but for respect of their conditioners, Noble Causeway and Sun King for instance.

A great score for those that played the negative bounce angle.

The Derby and Mall team here, appear to have factored the bounce fairly astutely. They went for Wilko and Closing Argument on their ticket. Not sure how deep they were but it sounds deep.

Bounce and Pace was the story of the race. If a handicapper was astute enough to figure bounce and a blinding pace Giacomo and Wilko were the most logical. Unfortunately I was not that clever.

[Mall]

You\'ll appreciate this. After the derby disappointment, I was still in the hunt to qualify for the Am Tab Championship my wife has qualifed for twice, assuming I could come up with a 9-1 shot in the nightcap at CD. When Chippewa opened a daylight lead in the stretch, his losing a 3-way head bob on the line was the only appropriate way for the day to end.

Others who spent many hrs handicapping, betting & carefully observing CD races over the last few days may feel differently, but there is no need for anyone who wasn\'t doing that to check any results on my account. In the silver lining dept, one of the good things going fwd that JB didn\'t mention is how it could affect handicapping. If things are reasonably clean going fwd, maybe we can make back what we lost on the derby before the end of the year.

[Bally Ache]

Mall

I also had Chippewa Trail & I had him with the eventual winner.  At the 8th pole I thought it was just a question of whether I would have the winner,  both the winner & the exacta, or just the exacta.  I didn\'t think losing was even on the menu.

That CD stretch sure is loooong.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Not sure of this...but it might have been rougher inside too. will look at that later.

CTC,

I agree with you that several of really fast horses coming in didn\'t duplicate their recent efforts, but personally I hate the use of the term \"bounce\".  

I think you have to seperate out horses that may have reacted to the strains of their prior effort (a bounce) from those that were simply overrated or questionable as to their ability to duplicate their fast race for other reasons.

All IMHO:

Bellamy Road - There is a huge difference between getting loose on the lead at 9F against Grade 3 horses on a track that is tilted towards speed and getting hung wide in a  fast pace at 10F in a 20 horse field with Grade 1 horses taking pot shots at you from everywhere. This horse had never been tested under conditions even remotely similar to this. Plus, even if you want to give him credit for running exceptionally well despite very favorable conditions in the Wood (which I did), it was still very unlikely for him to duplicate it.

Greely\'s Galaxy - He earned his fast figure in only his 4th start, 2nd route, and against 3rd string horses. I gave him a decent shot to win and even bet him in the race at 20-1, but this horse really fit the profile of a horse not prepared properly for the Derby in terms of seasoning, foundation, etc... IMO, he was clearly more likely to go backwards than several of the other contenders.  

Bandini - Ran so horribly I don\'t know what to make of it. Even if it was \"juice off\" that doesn\'t account for this horrible a performance. Keep in mind that most people that didn\'t like him felt that way because they thought the BG was too slow, not because they thought it was too fast. Personally, I thought it almost had to faster than Beyer made it, but maybe not. He had 3 weeks off and I think this is just one of those \"clinkers\" that shows up from time to time. Maybe something is wrong with him, but personally I don\'t think the BG knocked him out.

Afleet Alex - Ran well. I don\'t what kind of figure he will get, but even if it\'s not quite as fast at the Arkansas Derby this was a much tougher field and it was 10F. He more or less ran as well as I expected.