TCE

[Michael D.]

no way around it, the horse exploded in the blue grass. they hold the horse back for his first two starts of the year (one of them a $1m race), then they let him run like that? either brilliant preparation by zito (strike the gold?), or too much too late. which one is it??

[jbelfior]

Michael D--

TCE ran by a horse that cannot conserve his energy while enjoying a rail trip aided by a rare neutral Keenland bias.

Horses like TCE, that close from way out of it going a 1 1/8, are racing\'s biggest sucker bets at 1 1/4.  


Perhaps the pace will totally collapse and TCE will win from out of the clouds; but he doesn\'t get a dime out of me at 7-2.


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[MO]

Personally, I don\'t think Zito could train a dog to piss on paper. Strike the Gold was a counterfiet fluke (I\'m sure Best Pal got the better figure) and Hansel crushed him next 2 trips.(Knowing this, I took great pleasure in cashing all my bets AGAINST STG).

Go For Gin got an uncontested lead on a sloppy track. Take those 2 out of the picture and what does Zito have going for him?

He is a very nice guy, though, and I would not throw TCE out here. This one is legit.



Post Edited (04-14-04 15:01)

[fasteddie]

Joe B:

You are DEAD WRONG about Cliff; He will be no further than 8 off at CD; Shane let Lion go because he knew he could get him. Tapit and Imperialism will try from the clouds, but they won\'t get there!

Eurosilver won from way back at Kee. and if he did\'t get sick, he was a STONE LOCK to win
the Derby.

[HP]

Fasteddie,

The idea that Tapit will come from \"out of the clouds\" made me think, so I went to look at the charts.

TCEdge

At the 1/4 (23.3) was 10-1/2 lengths behind

At the 1/2 (46.3) 13-1/2 lengths

and at 3/4 (1.11.1) 7 lengths behind

Tapit

At the 1/4 (23.2) he was 11 behind

At the 1/2 (47) 9 lengths

at 3/4 (1.11.2) 4-1/2 lengths behind

Given the fractions (very close), the one coming from \"out of the clouds\" is going to be The Cliff\'s Edge, unless he decides to change tactics and crank it up a little sooner.

And if Shane \"let Lion go because he knew he could get him,\" he still must\'ve been sweating a little at the end!

HP

[upstateguy]

I think he was given 3rd string status by his own barn and when he became the main option after Eurosilver\'s illness and the bad start by Birdstone they may have knuckled down on him and given him more attention.  He has been compromised by brutal trips in both his 3yo and 2yo years and his coming out party was no surprise to me although the figure jump of that magnitude was.

[Dana]

TCE could be legit, but in my opinion, it\'s hard to put too much stock in the Blue Grass; Lion Heart is clearly in deep water when he ventures past a mile, mile sixteenth, and furthermore, Lion Heart doesn\'t use Lasix, so I\'m not sure he can breathe that well either (it\'s a mystery to me why Biancone doesn\'t use lasix), factor that in with the rare closers/outside bias at keenland that day, and the race loses it\'s appeal to me in terns of gauging the performance of TCE. Those who like him probably have enough to go on with his other races and breeding, but I don\'t see how you look at a horse passing a gasping, tired animal and think he\'s a superstar -- believe me I learned the hard way, those races in California this year are WEAK and Lion Heart may well be the best California horse so that\'s not saying much.

[pgsheets]

That\'s a very hollow exclamation.  The one about Eurosilver being a Stone(d) cold lock.



Post Edited (04-14-04 17:00)

[Know Nothing]

Did someone say Stoned ?

[Michael D.]

joe,
if eddy and RHT get in, and looking through the list today, i think they both will, i think TCE will be closer to 6-1 or 7-1. i agree though, 7-2 would be too low for my money.

mo,
i had the STG, BP exacta that year, think it was $70 or $80. BP was on the inside, and STG was way wide. i think STG must have run much faster... and hansel only beat STG by a nose in the belmont, was a great race. hansel crushed him in the travers. unfortunately, hansel fractured his leg in that race, and corporate report won it at the end. i agree that zito didn\'t to anything spectacular in either of his derby wins. the STG race collapsed, and mccarron simply stole the GFG derby. still, not many guys have two of those wins........ i\'m still undecided on TCE. i originally thought he would be a better miler, but i guess i have been proven wrong there.

[Michael D.]

i spoke a bit too soon about eddy and RHT getting in. pletcher is talking about running both limehouse and pollard\'s vision, minister eric is in, st averil looks possible, and if saratoga county, fire slam, or quinton run well on saturday, they could be in. i thought a few of those owners had already opted out.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

This is a great thread...

I liked Eurosilver too, but I\'ve liked a lot of em.

Nice memory on the \'91 races Michael.

Dana said:

\"I don\'t see how you look at a horse passing a gasping, tired animal and think he\'s a superstar -- believe me I learned the hard way, those races in California this year are WEAK and Lion Heart may well be the best California horse so that\'s not saying much.\"

If my math is right Lionheart came home in an extrapolated 25.22. If the race is as big T-Graph as it is other figs, its big because the track was slow. That would mean a close like Lionheart\'s may not mean he was gasping. I still think something is odd about two horses running that well. If I had access to Past Performances for Lion Tamer, I would look very closely at them and try to determine if his 1:23:14 and fractional marks for the race were consistent with a premise that the track was slow. I didn\'t handicap that card, so I\'m in the dark.

\"MO\" mentioned Strike the Gold in this thread. I remember betting a bundle on Hansel in the Belmont and being worried to death about it. I think Hansel had to come off Lasix for the race. Anyway I\'m there stone quiet in the stretch as I always am during the race. Though I\'ll admit to elation as soon as its official. My theory is the \"Paul Brown\" theory of handicapping. He always told his players not to celebrate like amateurs in the end zone. To treat the opponents with respect and conduct yourself as if you\'ve been there before and expect to be there again... Anyway, I\'m watching the race and theres this Latin fella screaming his head off for Strikey to get up...hes breaking my eardrum shouting \"Chula, Chula\", which i\'m told means \"faster, faster\" in Spanish. He\'s also screaming \"Strike the Gold, Strike the Gold\" and slapping his own thigh with a rolled up racing form as if he\'s a jockey whipping the horse. I\'m watching the stretch drive and sweating bullets, but a time comes, a long way yet from the wire, where I\'m confident he isn\'t gonna go past. (I can judge momentum better than most) and I turned to the Latin man and forgot all about my \"Paul Brown\" discipline and I screamed at him in my loudest voice \"HE AINT GONNA GET THERE!\"

It was a close race MO is what I rememeber.

Wrong thread but I don\'t want to clutter the board.. Ark day the track started out sloppy and a bunch of favorites and 2nd choices dominated in wire type races. After the track turned muddy, it could be argued that closers faired better, however some of them were favorites. Tuff call on the track helping Smarty.

Finally replays! Smarty did seem to shorten stride in the last sixteenth and he changed leads again late as someone noted. Borrego cut into him, but significantly past the wire that white shadow roll you see is Borrego. I don\'t think he\'s getting by Smarty in the Derby unless its a bounce scenario. Borrego was beaten by 4.5 lengths. Though I can\'t say that I\'m not somewhat concerned. But then Smarty showed a chink in the Southwest too.



Post Edited (04-15-04 01:51)

[MO]

Michael D -

I was thinking about the Preakness...

Cheers!

MO

[fasteddie]

Well, I\'ll never know about Euro, but I stand by what I said; You will need a radar screen to locate Tapit and Imperialism until the far turn, and this year especially, the jockey factor is huge! Elliot?? are you kidding me? Dominguez?? Nice jock, but the Derby + timing a move at 10F is a helluva lot different than riding those 5k horses in starter handicaps at Lrl.! Shane will have TCE sitting a good trip (draw dependent, of course!) and he\'ll be going away at the end.

Friend\'s Lake still bothers me though; I have a habit of falling in love w/ pedigrees, then waiting up to a YEAR for them to run to it (Domestic Dispute!) Good luck to all on DD!

[Michael D.]

what did domestic dispute run into? he may have won a slow stakes race, but he is as slow as he was last year (probably slower now after the dubai trip).