Exactly, HOSS. I imagine they never put the horse on the surface before the race. Imagine that.

He really should've been in the Preakness.

Yeah, he would have been a real threat to BIG Brown in the Preakness :rolleyes:
So much for this fast 3 yr.old

Yeah, he should have been there.....;)

$39,000 of the $58,000 in the show pool bet on him, Madison County bridge jumping not Golden Gate.

Stronach = Idiot. . . Poor Pletcher. . . Maybe now we'll actually get to see this horse in races that matter.

Once again, against his trainer's wishes, Stronach makes a total blunder. He learned absolutely nothing from the race. Is the horse distance challenged or did he hate Polytrack? Who knows.

Belonged in the Preakness. On to the Dwyer now I suppose.

well we knew that HR might not like the track, not a huge deal if they are patient, but he lost momentum of his form.

too bad Not Bourbon wasn't pointed toward this series with a longterm strategy, he seems fairly talented. Could use a rest, if we do see him back in this series I think he is very vulnerable.

The Turf horse Solitaire looks like he should do extremely well in this entire canadiant triple crown series against this level.

Maybe he learned not to point for the Queen's Plate. That counts.

If I were handicapping Harlem Rocker's next race today's result would be a throwout. In respect to the horses that finished ahead of him it is not possible that all 3 are better horses than him. It is impossible to conclude why the horse ran so badly, all we know is he is much better than this. There are times a horse runs better second time over a track, since the Queen's Plate was the pointed race from the start that is where he should go in my opinion, the Preakness and Ohio Derby are things of the past. The one positive thing is he will now atleast be bettable if he goes onto the Plate. Even with the question marks if he was declared sound I would back him in Plate at a fair price. Which up until today would never have been imaginable.

I would have serious issues Not Bourbon will get the 1 1/4, I can't see him being effective at that distance.

Exactly.

When you have a very talented canadian horse like that, and you have ideas about the Queen's Plate series, you want to

1.gradually stretch him out.

2. get him to rate.- Even if rating means running 24s and 48s and 112s.

3. You want to maybe get him a race on turf.

This was my point about Not Bourbon all along. They just kind of tried to win a decent sprint with him race after race, and never did any of those things.

Even if he is the most talented canadian 3yo, and even if he is able to eventually get 10furlongs, he is being abruptly tested.

he should probably get a layoff or point to 7 furlongs.


(now watch him take home the Can Triple crown :tro::tro::tro:)

Solitaire seems to have the profile to get the distance, I'm willing to wager he will be the favorite for the Plate and not...Not Bourbon.

You're absolutely insane if you think they should run him back in the plate.

Why? They have pointed for this since even before the Withers. I was one that agreed with Pletcher he should had run in the Preakness. I don't think one can read too much into one incredibly bad performance. The Plate makes more sense to me from a financial and prestige point of view than The Dywer. You need to expand to me why it is so insane? If you had told me that before the Preakness I would have agreed, but that race has come and gone, no use being revisionist about that now. Time to move forward if he wins the Plate the goal was achieved.

Why waste another start on a track he clearly doesn't like? Get him on the dirt and send him to races he can win that actually matter.

Not if he can't win it. . .

That may be the case and then again it may not be, I think you are assuming it was just the track that caused him to run badly. I am not dismissing that either, however I think you need more proof rather than having a knee jerk reaction. The point is they made a decision of having a real possibility of winning the Preakness for the Queens Plate, that was quite a price to pay, to change mid stream again and now point for the Dywer makes no sense to me. Skipping the Preakness for the Dywer cannot be the better option. If this were poker the hand would be pot committed, it's hard to fold now.

Why is it hard to fold now? They're not committed at all. And if it's not the surface then the horse is either hurt or he's MUCH worse than lots of people (including me) thought. The fact that they skipped the Preakness should have no bearing on their decision now. It's water under the bridge - now they can either run the horse back on the poly and risk wasting another race (and probably decreasing the value of the horse) - or they can go to the Dwyer and then point to either the Travers or Haskell. There's no reason whatsoever why they can't switch plans and go the Dwyer - which is the much better option - at this point. It's not like they haven't messed around with his schedule before (see Preakness, Ohio Derby).