Donna Barton

[marcus]

I believe Barton \'called it the way she saw it \' - and called it right imo . Personally speaking , I really can\'t imagine anyone was impressed the very least with Super Savers visual appearance on race day in the Saddling area or when Loaded into the Gate ..

[sighthound]

Exactly.  I agree, and I was watching the NBC feed.

Horses are living things.  One can hire clockers, and purchase reams of objectified product classifying performances, but those with an eye for a horse will still have a significant advantage.

[P-Dub]

Silver Charm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not sure what that means but if she is talking
> nonsense somebody needs to sit her down and make
> some sense of this.
>
> Only 15 minutes before Mike Battagliawas nearly
> wetting his pants over how great SS looked and how
> obvious it was the moment he step from the plane
> he knew he was the Boss of Pimlico. Now all of
> this SCREAMS top effort and yet the h
>
> Maybe she needs to explain herself and somebody
> needs to explain why SS ran so bad. And don\'t give
> me a shoe or the throat surgery is next baloney.
> This was the WORST I have seen a Derby winner run
> in maybe ever and the only person now who looks
> like she knew something was Donna Barton......

2 things:

Donna Barton is an accomplished horsewoman and clearly knows what she is talking about.

You listened to Mike Battaglia.  The worst track announcer of all time, and a nauseating presence on television. I wouldn\'t pay any attention to anything this guy has to say. As if anybody needs any more evidence of this, his hyping of SS is yet another example of how clueless he is.

Last thing,  who\'s responsibility is it to inform you that SS lost weight or doesn\'t look as good as he did in Kentucky??  Not starting anything with you, but are you blaming the television coverage for not mentioning it sooner?? DRF workout guys?? Just wondering..

[martoon]

Who do you think is the worst and best track announcer?

I think worst has to be the guy at Charles Town.  He fumbles for the names in every single race.  I like the new Churchill guy.

[Silver Charm]

Agree on Battaglia...my bad.


Regarding the other pre-race comments regardless of who the source is why print or speak them if they are inaccurate. Because they were all the same and we do tend to trust these people to be our eyes and ears if we are not there ourselves.

[mjellish]

I\'ve tinkered with something like this before, and the results were very unreliable.

I think it\'s pretty clear that SS bounced.  The problem is he really shouldn\'t have.  He didn\'t make that big of a move forward in the derby. So the question is, why did he bounce?  Was it the two weeks?  Was it the trip or the pace?  Did he not handle the strip?    

IMO, the early pace was fair in the Preakness but not so quick that it should have done him in.  Both FD and JB managed to stay on.  He really didn\'t run any faster than he did in the Derby when you adjust for the track speed.  He had a decent trip.  You can make the argument that he didn\'t like PIM, but I think that is a difficult thing to day.  He seemed to travel fine.  If it\'s true that he lost weight and didn\'t look very good, then I think clearly the two weeks and the effort in the derby and possibly his work between races had a lot to do with it.

I\'m still of the opinion that in any case, this is not a horse that really wants to go a classic distance, and I look forward to betting against him if he attempts to go that far in the future.  I think he\'s good enough to hang on for a piece depending upon the quality of the field he races, but that\'s about it.

Considering I liked JB and FD to hit the exotics, I sort of feel like a missed an opportunity here.  But I just didn\'t like the race to begin with and bet very, very small.  I think the filly DMC deserves some strong consideration in the Belmont if she runs.  She didn\'t care for that strip at Churchill at all.  Watch the replay.  You can see her spinning her wheels and she still ran pretty well.

I don\'t think there is any question that IB will be the favorite if he runs.

Congrats to all who cashed in the Preakness!

[Mall]

I don't know about Hong Kong, but in Japan the horse's weight is included in the pps and substantial changes are thought to be an important handicapping factor. And, as everybody knows, most trainers assume something is seriously wrong when a horse starts to lose its appetite.

The telecast either wasn't on or I didn't see it at Kee, but I also wouldn't be at all surprised if Donna Barton Brothers, a very successful former jockey and wife of trainer Frank Brothers who I believe still exercises horses, would notice that SS lost that much weight, as she's very knowledgeable and has been around horses her entire life due to the fact that her mother Patti Barton was a tough and trail blazing jockey who rode on the Midwest circuit back in the 70s.

This probably falls into the category of information many of you either don't need and maybe don't even want to know, but seeing the name reminded me of a coincidence two years ago when Patti Barton---and about 75 of her friends—sat next to me at Kee, and I learned something from her that I'd been wondering about for a number of years, namely what's up with the large groups of older ladies who seem to be just about everywhere and are easy to pick out because they all wear the same purple dresses and red hats. The way she described it was basically a "girls just want to have fun" social society for women of a "certain age."  In other words, except for the fancy clothes, the Red Hat Society, as its called, is kind of like a distaff version of the fun loving geezers who never miss a day at the OTB.

[Silver Charm]

Nothing wrong with that Mall and thanks for weighing in.

Some of my tongue-in-cheek zing is not meant to slam people who are trying to do a job. But the timing of her comment almost had the same feeling as when your horse prematurely breaks through the gate and is quickly reloaded.

You almost feel beat before the race even starts.

[richiebee]

I still think the 2 TDs -- Trevor Denman and Tom Durkin -- are the gold standard,
though each have slipped a bit and gotten away from the cool calm and collected
narrative style that put them on the top.

Each have had high profile gaffes in big spots -- Denman failing to recognize
that Pine Island had broken down in the BC Distaff and Mine That Bird kind of
sneaking up on Durkin in the 09 Derby.

Larry Collmus (GP/Mth) and Staten Island\'s John Dooley (FG/AP) are solid. Michael
Wrona (Northern California, was canned at FG when CD took over) is very
underrated.

Vic Stauffer has 2 types of calls-- one for when Joel Rosario wins and another
call for when any other jock wins. I guess VS is still JR\'s agent.

The worst (my opinion) is Tampa Bay\'s announcer. He sounds like he should be on a
sidewalk outside of a cheap strip joint in New Orleans, or at a state fair in Iowa
trying to get you to pay to see a 2 headed calf. Convinced that the only way he
keeps this gig is through some sort of blackmail.

Sorry for all those who missed Keeneland racing before they installed a track
announcer. Very surreal-- only the sound of pounding hooves and, eventually, the
roar of the crowd as the field approached the grandstand.

Full Disclosure: My dream job has always been to be a race caller in Jamaica,
Barbados or Australia, where I could be the race caller with the funny accent.

[BitPlayer]

I was at a graduation party and so only watched the race segment of the NBC broadcast with the sound on.  After Barton made her comment, I think the announcers said that Pletcher had told them earlier that Super Saver had lost 100 pounds since the Derby.  I assumed at the time that the Pletcher interview had been on-air, but maybe I was mistaken.

[miff]

Sight,

Would you please comment on water weight lost after a race and generally if it\'s possible for a horse to drop 100 lbs in two weeks.Years ago, 20-30 lbs after a race was what the vets told me.Did SS look tucked up, not to my eyes, he\'s not the most robust horse to start with.

Whats your experience,thanks.

Mike

[jack72906]

My favorite track announcer by far is Kurt Becker at Keeneland. Cool, calm, and collected.

Others:

Mark Johnson-CD
Durkin-BEL/SAR

Not good:

Grunder-TB....calm down...it\'s just a 5K claimer

Terry Wallace/Oaklawn...has obviously called a ton of races over the years, but he seemed to really struggle this year. So much stuttering that I actually thought something was physically wrong with him.

[mjellish]

Paul Allen at Canterbury is pretty damn good.  He could probably move on to bigger things at the track anytime he wanted to, but he\'s pretty well tied in here in the Twin Cities.  He\'s got an AM radio show and is also the voice of the Vikings.  You hear his clips all the time on ESPN.  He also runs a small stable of low level claimers along with a few other partners.  Goes by the name Slow Pay Stable, which has to be one of the best stable names of all time.

[Rick B.]

Durkin, Denman & Collmus are my faves, even though as others have noted, Durkin and Denman are slipping at times. Gonna happen to all of us, eventually. Have a heart, boys.

Dooley has too many weird phrasings that distract from the race: \"[Some horse making a move] is being produced\". What? WTF does that mean, \"is being produced\"? Or, \"[The horse on the lead] spins \'em in!\" Huh? Just call the damn race, meat, and stop looking for unnatural \"signature\" calls.

Wrona is contrived, period. He\'s been in the U.S., what 30 years? Yet the accent is as thick as if he just came in from the Outback. That\'s baloney. The only saving grace here is having an inconsequential announcer call meaningless racing -- one of those perfect symmetries that don\'t come along very often in life.

Grunder at TBD has a voice that should have never passed an audition for calling races. I can\'t comment on the actual substance of his race call, because I can\'t listen to him call an entire race before blood starts spurting from my ears. Maybe he\'s great from a technical perspective, but I can\'t chance it.

Someone said Grunder is a screamer...and what, Terry Wallace isn\'t? Good gawd, dude, tone it down before you have an apoplectic seizure -- every race at Oaklawn DOES NOT have the next Smarty Jones in it.

Wish we could have Luke K. and Kevin Goemmer back (R.I.P. guys). Neutral dialect, great sense of propriety (call intensity matched perfectly to the battle at hand, not trumped-up in any way), light use of \"signature\" calls...both of these gentlemen knew their place, and knew that they were there to describe and augment the show; contrast with Wrona, who thinks he IS the show.

[drbillym]

Vic Stauffer does a great job and admits to betting on races he calls-nuttin\' wrong wit dat, and you can hear it in his excitement.