DRF reporting that Gomez picked POTN

[covelj70]

surprises me

[Uncle Buck]

That is correct. He just announced it on TVG. The whole world can now return to regularly scheduled programming:-) (kidding Jimbo!)

This obviously kills the value on POTN.

[covelj70]

I really do think POTN will be 5 or 6 to 1 now and that\'s too short a price to take on a horse that hasn\'t ever run fast enough and hasn\'t run on dirt and hasn\'t delveloped from 2 to 3.

It also makes more comfortable tossing Dunkirk on top at least.

[Michael D.]

covelj70 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> surprises me

Good thing I didn\'t have money down on that decision .....

With Gomez on Dunk, I couldn\'t bet on him or against him at 6-1. There was also little value in tossing POTN at 11-1. NOW, I get to toss two horses at 7 or 8-1, which represents good value if I am correct.

This is a good decision from a betting standpoint, at least the way I see the race.

[jimbo66]

Michael,

Agree that it makes POTN a better \"toss\" in that he figures 7 or 8 to 1 now.  

I don\'t understand the decision though, especially coming from an agent/jockey that seem pretty sharp.  

I thought Dunkirk was one of the three most likely winners (with IWR and QR), but have to think GG knows more about Dunkirk than I do.  Maybe he is a toss.....  Too much too soon for a horse with no 2 year old foundation.

[Dana666]

Kills the value??? Without Gomez there is no value, b/c he\'d have no shot. I can just imagine the nightmarish list of riders Baffert may have been considering - and why won\'t there be value b/c almost every post I\'m reading here is how people are throwing him out? Do you all know how little synthetic numbers really mean, the whole thing is pure guesswork - it ruined the whole game of handicapping. You need to look at more intangible factors and POTN has them. Go-go\'s decision seals the deal for me.

[miff]

Cov,

POTN is better than he was at 2.He may not be able to stand up on dirt but he has a far more live run than several with faster figs.His whole deal is transferring his synth form to dirt,very hard to anticipate.



Pioneerof the Nile or Dunkirk from Gomez:


We\'re announcing Sunday which horse I\'ll be riding for the Kentucky Derby. I think it would just be better if we split the field, 10 and 10, and I ride in two Kentucky Derbies! Dunkirk or Pioneerof the Nile? I\'d really like to ride both of them.


These are talented individuals. They both have similar upsides - neither one of them has peaked, they both have long careers ahead of them, they both have a lot of room to grow. Both trainers, I ride a lot of horses for. Both owners, I ride a lot of horses for. It\'s hard to tell either one of them that I\'m taking off their runner but that\'s what I\'m forced to do, and thankfully I have good relationships with both Todd Pletcher and Bob Baffert, and they\'ll understand that whichever way we go, we\'re glad to have had the opportunity and sorry to give up the mount we can\'t ride.


I\'ll tell you a little about both runners, things I\'m taking into consideration leading up to the Derby.


With Dunkirk, I wasn\'t able to ride him in his first start because I was supposed to ride a horse for Bill Mott in the Sunshine Millions - we stayed in California and Edgar Prado rode him that day (Jan. 24) when he broke his maiden by 5 3/4-lengths. For his next start, Edgar was tied up on another horse or something so they gave us a call and we were happy to go ride him. He was a colt that they thought had a lot of talent so we were excited to go see if it was really true.


I rode him in the allowance race and he was very impressive, he showed a lot of ability and had room to grow. It wasn\'t like he was all mature and did everything right - he was still babyish - but he\'s got a beautiful stride to him. He\'s like a rocking horse; he just floats over the ground with a long, fluid stride, and he\'s a good-looking horse, too.


His prior two races he was on the inside - the first time he got left and he rushed up and didn\'t eat too much dirt even though he was down inside. The second time when I rode him I was wide the whole way so he didn\'t eat a lot of dirt; I put him in behind a little bit but it wasn\'t enough to really get him. In the Florida Derby I dropped in and it was pelting him pretty good and he was taking it - he wasn\'t liking it, but he was taking it - and that\'s a good sign, he was moving forward off something he\'d never done.


The fractions in the Florida Derby were a lot faster than the first time I rode him and he kept himself within seven or eight of the lead and when I called on him he made a solid run, a really good move. There wasn\'t a horse making up ground all day during Florida Derby Day, but he made up a lot of ground and looked the winner (Quality Road) eye-for-eye. When he turned for home he sustained his run, it was just that the other horse quickened and I couldn\'t quicken any more than I already had. If you watch the replay, galloping out I\'m in front, so I don\'t think a mile and a quarter will be a problem with him at all. He\'s a nice colt with room for improvement and he\'s moving along at the rate you would want him to.


Most of Todd\'s horses do their learning in the afternoon; he does enough with them in the morning, but not a lot. He doesn\'t do any :58 works whereas Baffert, on the other hand, will put the hammer down on some of them and make them work fast and kind of see what he\'s got. They\'re just two different kinds of trainers as far as the way they do things and personality-wise as well, but both are very capable, they just have different methods.


Pioneerof the Nile and I are perfect together, 4-for-4, we\'ve won two grade I races and two grade II races - he\'s put a lot of cash in our pockets so far and there\'s nothing negative about him, but he\'s not a flashy horse. He\'s like one of those boring golfers that all they do is win and they don\'t catch nobody\'s attention because they don\'t hole them off from the fairways, they don\'t hit brilliant shots, because they don\'t have to, they\'re never in trouble, they\'re just always where they need to be. He\'s one of those. He just puts himself where he needs to be and it might not be the prettiest thing but he gets the job accomplished.


He\'s doing it all within himself. The only race he might have extended himself a little bit with me was the Robert Lewis (Feb. 7). I thought he was going to run a bad third and I wheeled him out and he just dropped his head and sprinted home and I was like, "Wow, look what I\'ve got here!" He\'s always showed me that he\'s got tactical speed and wants to be up close, so that\'s the way I\'ve ridden him, but in the mornings we\'ve always worked him starting out six, seven, eight lengths behind another horse, to kind of give him a target.


In the mornings he doesn\'t pull, he just kind of gallops along. As we get around the track he gets a little closer and a little closer to his workmate and by the time we turn for home I\'m waiting to tell him when to go ahead and go on and level off and do a little more running. Usually he\'ll run by the workmate and after that all the sudden he gets into this buboom, buboom kind of stride and it\'s almost like he loses focus completely and turns into a gangly 2-year-old on me and runs all over the place. He\'s getting a little better, though. When I first started working him he wouldn\'t gallop out after a work he\'d just kind of stop and barely be galloping and I\'d be going "Yah, yah" to get him around there. But I\'ve got him where he\'ll gallop out by himself. He\'s maturing that way. He\'s a big colt, he\'s got a big, long stride to him.


He hasn\'t really done anything wrong when I\'ve ridden him in the afternoons, but in a couple of races on him I\'ve been a little uncomfortable because the simple fact is,


I know there\'s more to him. When he makes the lead he has pulled up a little bit in a few of his races, and it feels like you\'ve got a target on your back and somebody\'s gonna come and nail you. He\'ll go with another horse when they come to him but it\'s a matter of who\'s coming and where they\'re at for him to see them and how much time he has to get up on his feet before we get to the wire. He pulls himself up just enough to make you uncomfortable when he makes the lead, because you say, "Okay, I can\'t call on him and say \'Let\'s go\' and he\'s gonna go and keep on going." He doesn\'t work like that. So there\'s that nervous thing that kindof plays in the back of your head and that\'s probably one of the reasons he\'s run a little slower in his past couple races, because he\'s made the lead so early.


Well, regardless of who I ride in the Derby, we\'ve got our mount for the Oaks figured out. Stardom Bound is a talented filly and her performance in the Ashland just wasn\'t up to her usual standards. Hopefully she\'ll rebound off that loss and once she gets onto the dirt hopefully she\'ll move forward. It\'s a good mount to pick up.

[SoCalMan2]

If those are truly Gomez\'s comments up above, they are very revealing to me.  First, it sounds like Quality Road really wowed him and he has doubts about whether Dunkirk is ready to surpass that horse right now and, with the way POTN does just what is necessary to win, he sees more potential upside to squeeze out of that horse next race.  Also, his comments read to me as a bit of an indictment of Pletcher\'s regime versus Baffert\'s. No question who has a better triple crown record; but his comments seem to confirm that Baffert does what you need to get there for the big dance and Pletcher may just be doing what is best for the horse over time.  It certainly sounds like with a horse with only three races, Gomez would prefer more morning taskmaster work approach rather than the more patient train with racing approach.  Seems like a decision based strictly on who has a better chance of winning this one race rather than a view as to which will be the better horse in the long run (or which set of connections does he want to alienate less).  If you believe Gomez and his agent are good handicappers, GoGo laid out the reasons why they believe POTN has a better shot in this Derby than Dunkirk.

Of course, I could be completely mis-interpreting his comments.

[Silver Charm]

Guys the ODDS on these just flipped.

Prado is no four point discount rider but I will take it.

I know a pretty good story about these Derby Jock selections.I may tell it I may not. But isn\'t always which one these guys think is gonna win.

[miff]

So Cal,

Two things which are somewhat confusing:

1.Anderson is a speed fig guy and he has obviously seen that Dunkirk has better figs.He may not like the pattern of Dunkirk given his brief career and no 2yr old races.You can also bet they he is well aware(from third parties) exactly how both horses are training/acting.

2.In selecting POTN, who is supposed to be a synth/turf horse,you have to wonder if they know/think they know more about how he will handle the dirt than is being stated.

I would have bet he was taking Dunkirk.


Mike

[Uncle Buck]

Guesswork:
POTN off-odds with Gomez 6-1.
Dunkirk off odds with Prado 10-1

[jimbo66]

Don\'t think so.  Gg\'s choice makes them both 7 or 8 to 1.  Dunkirk has gotten too much press and looks too good on paper to be 10 to 1.

[Silver Charm]

Jimbo very much respect your opinions and you have a lot.

Street Sense: 4.90-1
Curlin: 5.00-1
Scat Daddy: 7.20-1

Nobody else under 10-1 in a twenty horse field. There are already TWO others in the 5-1 range. There may be only one chair left in the room at less than 10-1....

[P-Dub]

POTN was going to be one of the top 4 horses in the betting regardless of what decision Gomez made.

He\'s won his last 4 races (including the SA Derby), Trained by Baffert, versatile running style. Not surprised he chose this one over Dunkirk.

Agree with Uncle, the waiting around with breathless anticipation over which horse Gomez will ride was ridiculous.

[TGJB]

Knowing Anderson looks at figures, I have to wonder if this all reflects on how Dunkirk is doing.