Mine That Bird

[miff]

Al,

There is no questioning the legitimacy of his win based on that long sustained run. This horse did not get lucky.My point goes to those trying to somehow justify the performance.Lots of excuses for many I agree.God may have been on this one, just for himself.Can\'t explain either why he was not at least 100-1 based on credentials going in.

Mud is the best explanation, as just look at Accredit yesterday, a substantially different horse when his feet gets wet.


Mike

[Uncle Buck]

It\'s pretty simple in my eyes Miff. You don\'t think Calvin thought he was on an impossible \'shot?\" He can read the form. His way-too-simple strategy was \"Well, I\'ll jus\' let \'em all grapple for the lead on the far turn, bunch up, go wide and tire themselves out. If this little guy likes the mud, I\'ll let him relax for the first 7 furlongs then cut him loose on the fence and see what happens.\"

That\'s my attempt at getting into Calvin\'s head. As he told Donna Brothers, \"My little guy was the only one runnin\' at the end.\" So - the other\'s ran a brutal 7 furlongs and mostly jumped up and down coming home and he simply floated by tired horses. If I were to guess - the 1W1W trip and the 2:02 final time would equate to about a 0 or a 1 on TG - a 4 point jump. Beyer will probably have him in the 105 or 107 range - not the most impossible jump ever.

Going forward - I doubt you\'ll here anything from these poeple (connections) or horse again. If that trainer with the big black hat didn\'t have such a chip on his shoulder - Mr and Mrs Obama might want him over for supper.

[BB]

Buck, the guy with the chip on his shoulder had the class to thank the trainer who had him in Canada and got the G3 win that got him into the Derby. I can understand the chip on the shoulder after god-knows-how-many questions all week about $9,500 geldings and 2,100 mile van rides. He seems all right to me.

[smalltimer]

I read in the DRF that he and the connections were getting heckled all the way along the way up with the horse to the paddock.  If that\'s the case, this shocker really had to shut \'em up.

[Ill-bred]

Note how Hold Me Back rocketed up the rail under Desormeaux\'s absurdly early move. In his post-race quote he said he was surprised that HMB came up empty in the lane??!!??

[TGJB]

David-- that means if you spend 4k and it pays 14k for a buck, you are getting 5/2 (before taxes). I\'m not saying you spent that much last year, just that a big spread like that which inludes 3 favorites is not a great risk/reward situation.

[rosewood]

Smalltimer,

I couldn\'t find the story. Do you have a link?

You know when I watched the replay and Calvin looked back after he came through and took the lead; he looked back and shook his stick back at the jocks behind him as if in a good bye or f@#k you gesture and I thought something was strange. He may have taken a lot of heckling from the other connections as well.

[sighthound]

Yes, I think coming from altitude helped a little, but it\'s measurable.  That effect lasts for about a week, I don\'t know when the horse got into Churchill.  the trainer said he did stop and gallop him in Texas on the way here.

The track was floated (not sealed) right before the Derby, and even the NBC guys were talking about how firm and fast that makes the track.  They were talking about it relating to breakdowns.

Watching the race, the hardness of the absolute rail path (right up snug against it) is seen on the far turn, when the 5 horse made a huge acceleration move for several strides on the rail (then left it!).  Go back and watch that.

Borel talked in detail about how this ride happened, and it was pretty clear to me that he knows it was a perfect storm.  But he\'s a smart enough jock to recognize it happening and he acted on it.

Not to mention he\'s a true Cajun rider, gutsy and half-crazy when he has to be.

He said (paraphrasing) on the interview during the ride back:  \"Mr. Nafzgar taught me to ride the rail, he taught me to be patient on these baby 3-year-olds, they only have one run\"

At the press conference he said (paraphrasing):

The plan was to go out and lay off the pace, but when his horse got slammed and bumped and squeezed back at the start, he just cut over to the rail and lay back.  

His horse cruised through a lazy gallop at the back with no kickback, while everyone else was up running fast and tiring in the mud.

He said he figured that he could go wide and close to get a placement (someone mentioned this here already) but he had the rail so clucked the horse on, and it really responded - and he kept going, and the horse kept coming, so he just went for it.  

He acknowledged his horse was physically little, so that let him \"float over the track, rather than sink in\" - that\'s a known thing (smaller horses usually do okay in the mud) - and the little horse was quick on his feet and squeezed through that tiny hole on the rail.  He sounded surprised the little horse kept coming, too.

Borel did shake his whip back at the three jocks struggling in the center of the track, laughing.  

After doing a bit of the same on Rachel yesterday (pointing to the horse, celebrating before the wire), I wonder if the stewards talked to him - but the crowd loved it!

So yeah, I, too, looked for Giacamo\'s and didn\'t find this one, but I can buy that this was the luckiest day of that little horse\'s life - and his trainers, owners, etc.  They owe Borel big time.  He rode that little horse like he was in a bullring - Borel, after Friday, was in the zone, just being gutsy and having a ball this weekend.  Best weekend of that jocks life.

[miff]

Poor Sheik MO was there and watched his runners waxed by a $9,500 small crooked legged slug, who one prominent clocker noted pre derby \"MTB does not belong in the race\"

hee hee,gotta love it!

Mike

[Ill-bred]

I just rewatched MTB\'s previous races at Sunland, hoping I\'d see some hint of what we saw on Saturday.

It\'s not there.

[TGJB]

MIke--

1-- Lets assume (I haven\'t done the figure yet) that the winner ran a 1, and the big margin was a result mostly of saving ground. That means mostly horses ran bad. MTB made a 4-5 point jump, just like many horses in the Derby had done at some earlier point this year. That by itself is not shocking. But the combination of the jump, the rail, and a lot of other horses Xing caused the result.

2-- CD switched labs this year. The one they used last year (Iowa) did not do blood testing for Clenbuterol, and possibly other tests-- they didn\'t have the equipment. The one this year (Florida) does.

3-- On good authority, and I\'m not going to go into any more detail than this-- they held a meeting with the trainers Friday to explain the pre and post race testing procedures with them. One guy got very agitated, and started asking a lot of questions.

It is possible that the ABSENCE of drugs caused the result.

[sighthound]

Jerry, I was told they were \"supertesting\" this Derby (testing for things they normally do not), and freezing blood, too.  I don\'t know the lab.

[miff]

1-- Lets assume (I haven\'t done the figure yet) that the winner ran a 1, and the big margin was a result mostly of saving ground. That means mostly horses ran bad. MTB made a 4-5 point jump, just like many horses in the Derby had done at some earlier point this year. That by itself is not shocking. But the combination of the jump, the rail, and a lot of other horses Xing caused the result.


JB,

Slightly different issue, assume this, when you have a minute:

The winner was I Want Revenge and not MTB, same trip, all others finishers exact. Why would the fig that you, Friedman and Mark Hopkins award be faster for IWR (and the ones behind him) than it WILL be for the slug MTB.I call that projection voodoo,they laugh,what say you?

To add fuel to this fire you will note that the raw times deteriorated (slowed) as the day went on.There was obvious maintenance all day and surely within the 70 minutes leading up to the derby to be considered.


Mike

[TGJB]

Miff-- I have 20 horses to work with, even if I cut the race loose from the others. Why would I make the race faster if IWR won? You seem to share CTC\'s mistaken view that figures are made off winners. That\'s true if you use par claiming levels, not if you make sophisticated figures.

I\'m giving the winner a new top no matter what, what difference does it makes whether it\'s 2 or minus 2?

If your theory was correct I would never give anyone a new top.

[BitPlayer]

TGJB -

One note: the relevant comparison is not with the drug-testing procedures for last year\'s Derby, but with the the drug testing procedures in the jurisdictions where this year\'s Derby horses earned the tops that they failed to reproduce.

A couple of questions about your figure-making procedures that pop to mind after this year\'s Derby:

Is \"1w\" Calvin Borel\'s rail or everyone else\'s rail?

On days like yesterday when the rail appears to be good, do you gear your figures to the horses who ran on the advantageous rail (so that one should mentally upgrade the figures earned bu others running against the bias) or to the horses who ran elsewhere (so that one should downgrade the figures earned on the favored rail)?