Man, if one wants to use 2 year old tops as an important angle

[covelj70]

it\'s really hard to find too many horses one would want to use for this Derby.

I went back today and looked at the last 5 derbies and it\'s very apparent that it\'s really difficult to move forward in the Derby without the benefit of a good foundation building type of effort at 2.

Most of the horses that seemed ready to move forward in the Derby over the last 5 years that wound up either bouncing in the Derby or not moving forward had already improved significantly off of their 2 year old figure.

This year, there are very few horses that ran good figures as two year olds that are still around

Certainly Quality Road did but it\'s also true that looking back over the last 5 years, no horse has rebounded off of such a big negative number as he ran in the FOY and with only 4 lifetime efforts and only 1 two turn race, one has to question the overall foundation.

Friesan Fire is the one that concerns me most on this score.  His pattern looks awesome if we can forgive the 7 weeks and never having gone beyond a mile and a sixteenth but he\'s already improved 5 points from his two year old top.  Can he really move forward the several points that will be necessary to win this thing?  I think it will be tough based on history.

Desert Party scares me there as well as even if we can forgive the big jump last time, he has already improved massively from 2

Papa Clem as well, big jump up in last can maybe be forgiven if we \"adjust\" his slop number in the La Derby but he has already improved quite a bit as well from 2.

West Side Bernie would seem to fit the bill as he had a good 2 year old foundation but a) I don\'t like his breeding for 1 1/4 with a miler on top and gilded time on the bottom and b) he hung badly in the wood and c) I am a believer that everything has to go right leading into the derby to win and this bit of colic and the long spacing between his breezes makes him a throwout as well.

Relative to POTN, we can all debate whether he will jump up first time dirt but the fact of the matter is that apples to apples, he hasn\'t improved at all from 2 despite being heavily raced and that certainly hasn\'t been the recipe for Derby success looking back at the data.  Even if we adjust all of his figures up for the move to dirt, he still has this same issue that would make a big move forward in the derby unlikely based on past data.

Bottom line in all of this is that if one puts emphasis on the 2 year old foundation AND believes that huge efforts take too much of a young horses, there is really only one horse to look at in this Derby....Regal Ransom

after all of this, I think it\'s easy to understand why our host played this guy in the futures and why he keeps hinting at a bomber as the key horse he will unveil in the seminar.

Race shapes for this race tells about a clear a picture as we have seen, there is NO PACE in this years Derby.  The winner is very likely to be forwardly placed as its going to be near impossible for the closers to get there into a slow pace around all the traffic.

RR will be on or near the lead, he has a jock that knows what he is doing and has run well in classic races before (whether it be Garcia or Dominguez), the pedigree is there for 1 1/4 with Deputy Minister on the bottom side, he\'s been tested, he\'s working well, he gets the lasix back and looks good at Churchill and he will be 20-1 or more.  I wish he hadn\'t shipped back and forth to Dubai but he seems to have held up well in the face of that.  heck, if there were no questions, he would be 20-1.
 
Barring anything unforeseen in the next 10 days, there\'s your derby key.

[jack72906]

I like RR a lot and have been planning on putting him in the exotic picture...at least. He becomes even more intriguing if JITD doesn\'t run. Distance will be the concern, but we should get at least 20-1 on him.

However, after watching last years Seminar..again...it seems that Quality Road is the clear choice. The knock against him is the qc, but he\'s working well.

If from 1995-2007 only 8% of the starters ran new tops, you can throw out the majority of the field.

If \"less is more\" horses with fewer starts have a 40% chance of pairing or running a new top, again you can eliminate at least 10-15 horses.

Finally, the \"ideal candidate\" has a strong 2yo top, run less than 4 prep races, comes in off of a pair of tops,and is already fast enough to win. The only horse that meets the criteria is QR.

[covelj70]

Jack,

For sure, QR is the one that checks all of the boxes the best but:

1) Horses that have run the huge negative number rarely hold together and he did go backwards in the Fla Derby and showed signs that he hasn\'t recovered from the big effort (ie. weight loss after the Fla Derby)

2) he doesn\'t have alot of foundation as I don\'t believe a horse with 4 only starts (and only 1 two turn prep at that) have ever won the Derby.  I know BB won with only 3 starts but this is a much tougher crop than last year.

It makes sense to use quality road somewhere in the exotics because one of the favs will hit the board somewhere but he\'s hard from me to use at 5-1

[HP]

I\'m sorry...but which of these criteria does I Want Revenge miss?  I\'m guessing you don\'t think his 2yo top is \"strong\" enough since he clearly meets the other criteria.

HP

[covelj70]

My premise was that if you believe in 2 year old foundation AND that young horses take awhile to recover from big efforts, theren\'t aren\'t alot to like.

IWR has already improved more than 9 pts from his 2 year old top AND the big effort seemed to take alot out of him in that he went backwards in the wood and he is training poorly at CD, at least compared to the bullets he was firing before his other races.

[jack72906]

At the short price bettors will get on IWR, I\'m willing to throw him out regardless of his workouts. The one area of the criteria that he doesn\'t meet is that he may be over raced. Add that to the fact that he just ran back to back HUGE efforts and he\'s a toss for me.

[jimbo66]

Covelj,

As you know, you are measuring IWR\'s development from a 2 year old \"synthetic top\" to his 3 year old \"dirt top\".  I would argue that the evidence we have seen over the past number of months makes this \"development\" a very meaningless point.

The \"backward move\" for IWR in the Wood is pretty debatable as well.  I have heard TGJB talk about how \"something always seems to happen to horses sitting on a bounce pattern to cause this bounce\", but I am not buying that IWR reared at the start because he feeling the effects of his last effort.  Can anybody credibly believe that?  As for the figure he ran, analyze the race he had.  Reared at the start, settled back in last, not asked to run at all, crept up on the backstretch on the rail, moved between horses approaching the turn, behind a wall of horses at the top of the stretch, bulled his way through a hole with an eighth of a mile to, then accelerated to a 2 length lead and held it through the last 50 yards.  At one point during the race COULD he have run faster?  Given the patient ride by Talamo, he had nowhere to run until the last 1/8th of a mile.  I guess you could argue that he could have continued to open the lead in the last 50 yards to 4 lengths, instead of 2, but he still would have been looking like a \"bounce\", eve if he did that.  You can say \"a figure is a figure\" and he moved backwards.  But if Talamo panicked, circled the field 5 wide in the first turn to get position, then had to go 4 wide on the 2nd turn, and won the race by 1/2 length, but getting a negative 3 TG figure (pair up), would sheets players then view his form as positive?  To me, that would not be \"better\" than what happened.

Your point on the workouts is important and I am concerned about that, much more so than the first two points.  I would want to see a very impressive last workout for IWR.  I take some solace in the fact that yesterday\'s work was on a sloppy track, not a dry track.  The first workout was not poor.  He was not asked to run at all and according to the report I read, his 50 breezing looked like he was going much slower, which is a positive, not a negative.

[number5858]

I am not so sure about poor works. Here is what Bruno De Julio had to say about it yesterday,

\"I Want Revenge worked at Churchill Downs on Tuesday, April 21 over a strip that was still \'\'pretty wet\'\' according to our man on the ground at Churchill Downs.
 
I Want Revenge worked with Gato Go Win. Talamo was on board the Wood Winner, and Joe Deegan was on board Gato Go Win.
 
\'Revenge spotted the quick sprinter four lengths, but just inhaled him in the stretch. He had his ears pricked and went out strongly over the drying out track in 115 and change.
 
Churchill is an oddity while drying out. The turns seem to dry before the stretch and it can be an uneven surface right after showers. In fact, they had to close the track for some time on Monday to repair a washed out area near the 7/8ths pole.
 
\'Revenge galloped out all the way to the end of the Churchill backstretch. He stood like a statue overseeing his kingdom before walking back like an old pony.
 
He got back to barn 24 and was as tough as a horse could be while being cooled out by Mullins assistant, Bobby Troeger. He tried to bite and knock Troeger around while he was being hotwalked. After his bath he stood like a model, posing on the runway. He was handful for his handlers to just get him back in the stall. The colt lashed out with one big snipe at the arm of his groom.
 
Obviously, I Want Revenge is on the muscle.\"

[Josephus]

Well, which one is accurate, covelj70\'s report or Bruno De Julio\'s?

[HP]

Jack it sounds like you are talking yourself into something.  If your criteria is \"run less than 4 preps\" and IWR has run three preps how is he over-raced?  Your definition is less than 4 preps and he fits.  

Also, what you are saying about back-to-back huge efforts does not apply to Quality Road as well?  They are practically the same numbers IWR ran.  

It sounds like you like QR and not IWR.  It\'s got nothing to do with the \"criteria\" you name because IWR fits as well...  

Good luck.  HP

[covelj70]

The thing about evaluating works is that there\'s alot of subjectivity and people usually wind up seeing what they want to see.

As I posted yesterday, the guy I use at Churchill has a phenomenal eye and he\'s unbiased (he smartly doesn\'t bet) and he called the work \"very so so\"

the time relative to the others on the day clearly wasn\'t very fast and it should be fast given a) that he worked in company, and b) that he worked very fast prior to his other races.  He has clearly been a good work horse and this wasn\'t a very fast work.  He did get some urging to get past his workmate so the report that he \"inhaled\" his workmate when he only got him by a neck on the wire is clearly an exaggeration.

Now, maybe if he comes back with a 5f in 58 and change next week, we can reevaluate but for now, his works seem very mediocore and given that every Derby winner since Smarty has fired a monster bullet, this should be a cause for concern for people taking 4-1 on this horse.

[HP]

All I know is you have to have guts to leave out the fastest horse(s) in a race based on workouts.

[jack72906]

HP Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jack it sounds like you are talking yourself into
> something.  If your criteria is \"run less than 4
> preps\" and IWR has run three preps how is he
> over-raced?  Your definition is less than 4 preps
> and he fits.  
>
> Also, what you are saying about back-to-back huge
> efforts does not apply to Quality Road as well?
> They are practically the same numbers IWR ran.  
>
> It sounds like you like QR and not IWR.  It\'s got
> nothing to do with the \"criteria\" you name because
> IWR fits as well...  
>
> Good luck.  HP


Lol! You could be right. I may be trying to talk myself into something. I\'m sure I\'ve cost myself money in the past because of it. Maybe I\'m misunderstanding \"prep races\". My definition would not be \"derby preps\", but total number of races run prior to the Derby including races in the 2yo season. IWR has run 8 races. QR has run 4.

Every horse has question marks no doubt, but if we\'re looking for some solid statistics/patterns/percentages, based on last years seminar QR fits it best that\'s all I was saying.

We all need luck. If it wasn\'t the Derby it\'d be a race to pass on.

[HP]

I do it all the time Jack.  

I have the opposite take on this in terms of number of races...because I think the big races QR has run came with very little foundation.  I take that as a negative.  I like IWR better because it looks like he can get to the track and do his thing a little more regularly.  

I also think IWR may need another go over the track to get comfortable, but this pre-Derby workout stuff almost always takes up more of my time than it turns out to be worth.  

We\'ll see!

[TGJB]

If I read what Bruno wrote correctly, he was getting a report from someone else. I don\'t think he\'s at CD yet.

Also worth keeping in mind that he has a vested interest of some sort in IWR (I think he picked him out, not sure), so he may not be an unbiased observer here. He and I have a side bet-- I bet him IWR would not beat either QR or Dunkirk. Bet was made 5 minutes before they anounced QR\'s quarter crack (literally), Regardless, it\'s just dinner.

HP-- not to scoop my own seminar, but I\'ve covered this before here, so what the hell. The negatives with IWR are the slow 2yo top (he ran on Cushion twice as a 2yo, which is basically dirt) and huge development, the too-fast-too-soon issue, the backward move going into the Derby (very few winners came in that way), the history of synth-to-dirt \"One and done\" jumps. And you would think that if they are ever going to be all over a trainer, it will be Mullins at this Derby.

I\'ll deal with QR in the seminar.