Flower Alley was not in shape according to Pletcher

and it looked it. he'll improve.

Um, newflash to someone that still doesn't have a clue, he is considered an OLDER horse, if anything Invasor is still a 3 year old I think (Southern Hemisphere are a year older, but not really)

not 100% as in fit.....he is healthy....just wasnt 100% fit for that race.....

if a trainer is going to use a race to train a horse (get him fit) don't you think the horse should run more than once every couple of months?

if the horse is ok then his training seems to have slipped..

Yap. Needs to run a few more races if he's training him in races. I thought Sun King ran a huge race with the first half in only 47and change. That was a really big finish.

newsflash? Someone who doesn't have a clue? do you have any idea what you are talking about? it sounds like you know nothing about horse racing.

Invasor is the Uruguayan Triple Crown Winner and Horse of the Year. He is not a 3 year old.

Thats funny the horse wasn't 100% but yet he was 3-2


I wonder the total amount bet to WPS was???:D :D

saying he wasn't 100% for the whitney is a slap at pletcher. so he runs horses in grade 1's that are not fit?

Does it concern Invasor fans that he needed every bit of the stretch to beat a horse who clearly isn't a two turn horse? Sun King is a very nice horse, but the only race he's won in the last half year or so was a sprint; he's never run well against even less than top class competition around two turns.

I also don't get Pletcher; if I owned Flower Alley, I'd be pretty steamed that he ran a horse who was less than 100% in the Whitney. This is a very prestigious race - what, was Todd using it as a prep for something else? Sheesh - at best, FA was going to only have 4 or 5 races this year. Why throw away one of them right off the bat? Unless he honestly thought FA at less than 100% was good enough to beat Invasor.....isn't that kind of arrogant?

not at all. sun king nearly beat a great horse at belmont in a mile race. when he is cranked up he is one of the best older horses. look at his keeneland and belmont race.

invasor wants more ground anyway.

flower alley was not less than 100%. pletcher does not run short horses in a 9f grade 1. people are making excuse for a horse that is not as good as invasor.

no, pletcher admitted he didn't have FA 100% for this race...it looks like pletcher blew the training for this race.

Hmm, well I think Sun King is not quite top-class (meaning that he'll generally run good races but will not beat the best horses), but that's not meant as a knock. I would love to own him - it drove me up a wall when people put Aptitude down as a nag (and that's one of the nicer things they said about him). If he was a nag, I wouldn't mind having a barnful of them. I also wasn't implying, in case it wasn't clear, that Invasor is anything less than a heck of a horse.

We could have some seriously good fall racing at Belmont-whatwith Bernardini, Invasor and Flower Alley presumably all pointing for the Jockey Club Gold Cup

Technicalities like this are why universal birthdates are used for official reckoning, but it doesn't change the fact that Invasor probably is 3, just barely.

Invasor was born in August of 2002. Of course he's officially considered a 4YO for racing purposes, but there's a decent chance that he has not passed his actual 4th birthday yet.

[quote=Betsy]Does it concern Invasor fans that he needed every bit of the stretch to beat a horse who clearly isn't a two turn horse? Sun King is a very nice horse, but the only race he's won in the last half year or so was a sprint; he's never run well against even less than top class competition around two turns.QUOTE]

on sun king:


Winnings: 20 Starts: 6 - 4 - 4, $1,942,978

2004: 3rd BC Juvenile(G1), Champagne S.(G1)
2005: 1st Pennsylvania Derby (G2), Tampa Bay Derby (G3), Leonard Richards S.(G3); 2nd Haskell Invitational (G1); 3rd Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1)
2006: 1st Commonwealth BCS.(G2); 2nd Whitney H.(G1), Metropolitan Mile (G1), Albert the Great S.

:eek: When I go to bed tonight, I am going to close my eyes REAL hard and pray for: 1. Israel and Lebanon (Iran, Syria) to stop bombing each other; 2. That we can gracefully exit Iraq; 3. people who slam others opinions to at least research their facts.

Ok,

No I didn't have money on Flower Alley. The OTB is 24 miles away from my house, it is over 100 degrees here, and I simply didn't have time to make the journey to bet on an even money horse.

According to EQUIBASE Flower Alley was 4 wide the entire freaking race. Nothing stated about INVASOR going wide, ever. He did stumble at the start, before being put in good position. Freaking WEST VIRGINIA, Premium Tap, We Can Seek, and Wandering Boy beat FA. FA finished in 7th place, beaten by a ton of unimpressive horse flesh, and was beaten by INVASOR and SUN KING by 9 lengths. LMAO, FA lost "1/2 length"? Brooklyn, I am either going to guess that you were trying to be sarcastic, or god, please let me BANK YOUR BETS. PLEASE! Because something tells me that you don't have a clue. :eek:

Good grief ...

... Flower Alley is beginning to sound like Lost In The Fog!

Let's see ... did he "not fire" ... did he "not run his race" ... was he "studdish" ... did he "not like the track" ... did he "get a bad ride" ... and what else were they saying about Lost In The Fog ... that can also be applied to Flower Alley?

Modest suggestion ...

... take your nose out of the Equibase chart book ... and watch the actual race.

Invasor was three wide ... and Flower Alley was four wide ... around the turn ... which gave Invasor a 1/2 length advantage over Flower Alley ... and ...

... not that it should matter ... Sun King was six wide.

Okay listen, since everyone else has already correctly demonstrated that your analysis of the Whitney borders on the insane, I'll address this question. The answer is......yes it was a coincidence!!! I believe the race you are reffering to was the Rebel and it had nothing to do with JV being his rider. After the race it was revealed that AA wasn't right for the race. I can't remember exactly what it was (I'm sure someone here will) but the horse was either sick or hurt. It had NOTHING to do with the jock.