Mike Smith sticks with Hopportunity over Intense Holiday

[covelj70]

I put alot of emphasis on these kinds of decisions by a jockey and his/her agent

they aren\'t always right but they are right more often than they are wrong (note Javier taking off General ARod in the Florida Derby for Constitution)

There isn\'t a big race rider in the game better than Smith and so this decision is worth nothing I believe both for Hopp and Intense Holiday

[Halo Fire]

John Velazquez rides Intense Holiday

[BitPlayer]

I will be interesting to see where Rosario lands.

It looks like General a Rod didn\'t work this weekend, which is what I would have expected if he had bounced out of the Florida Derby well.

[miff]

Every 3yr old TC contender Rosario gets on,goes backwards.....he\'s a bum!

[TreadHead]

Not really questioning your premise Jim, but do we have any actual data to back this up?  I\'m thinking last year that Johnny V had a choice between Verrazzano and Orb and choose wrong, but I\'m having trouble thinking thru other serious choices jocks have had to make other than that one.

It\'s a premise that SEEMS like it should make sense, but would love to see someone with time to fully research this show a meaningful amount of data to see if tough Derby choices are usually made correctly in the past.  And it may be that there really isn\'t much data to go off of.

[big18741]

I think it\'s meaningless when you have horses that are comparable and I don\'t see much difference between the two.If they both fire the difference probably comes down to who saves more ground.

A good example would be last year Castellano taking Normandy Invasion(4th) over Revolutionary(3rd)

[baron1970]

They took Santana off for Rosario to ride in the Arkansas derby, to funny. Does it really matter who is on your horse, if the horse can\'t run?

[TreadHead]

OK, but while it is splitting hairs on one of them, technically 2 huge name jocks made the wrong choice with their decisions last year.  This is kinda what I wanted to get into, but I have no memory of other jock decisions and doubt google is going to be much help.  Would have to go thru PPs of all the major contenders to iron it out, unless someone has a sharper memory.

[brew]

more a choise of baffert horse over plecher

[jbelfior]

Castellano\'s decision to ride Normandy Invasion cost Revolutionary the Derby when Borel got the mount. Not sure what decision from TP was worse...putting Calvin on Revolutionary or blinkers on Palace Malice.

Good Luck,
Joe B

[louisvilleguy1111]

Back in 1994 Bailey took off Go For Gin McCarron jump on and went basically wire to wire in the slop. Bailey rode him horrible all winter, Holy Bull and his bar shoe was the favorite that year. When they named McCarron I was all in!! That was a nice Derby score wish they all came that easy! Lol

[louisvilleguy1111]

1995 mike smith rode thunder gulch all winter down at gulfstream gave the mount up for a NY horse can\'t recall his name then pat day jumped on for the bluegrass stakes 4th place finish then Stevens got back on him (rode him as a 2 year old) to win the roses. Just another that sticks out that I can recall.

[P-Dub]

TreadHead Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------
>
> It\'s a premise that SEEMS like it should make
> sense, but would love to see someone with time to
> fully research this show a meaningful amount of
> data to see if tough Derby choices are usually
> made correctly in the past.  And it may be that
> there really isn\'t much data to go off of.

In making your case against California Chrome, you talk about horses that raced exclusively in California not replicating their form in the Derby.  I mentioned several horses that have had success, but you discounted them.

You said that California Chrome raced on the \"new dirt\", those horses that I mentioned ran on the \"old dirt\".

Fine. You know when they started racing on the \"new dirt\"??? December 2010. You used the enormous data base of 3 years to come to the conclusion that horses racing exclusively in California could\'t replicate their form in Kentucky for the Derby. Let\'s forget that you used a sprinter/miler as Exhibit A.

Looks like it shouldn\'t take too much time to research this premise. 3 years of data has proven that California horses racing exclusively in California run poorly in the Derby.

[TreadHead]

P-Dub, you are mentally challenged, I\'m really not sure how else to state it.

I NEVER, in any shape or form, said that all horses who race in California and have success can\'t have success away from California.  I very clearly stated that there are 2 buckets of horses, one where surface doesn\'t matter, and another, of which there are several examples, where exceptional performances on glib surfaces aren\'t fully duplicated on fairer tracks.

I also openly stated there is no data to show us what CC is going to do and anyone speculating that he will take to it fine (you) or won\'t take to it as well (me) is doing little more than making a guess at this point.

I would ask you to fully read and comprehend my discussion points before throwing up arguments against strawmans that have completely twisted and changed the original meanings of my words, but it seems pretty apparent that you clearly just enjoy arguing, even if you are arguing against yourself with a strawman you made up.

[TGJB]

Tread-- stop calling people names.