the tin man had more class than they gave him credit for. once again a horse loses because his handlers underrate the competition.

I have all the respect in the world in the conections of the top horses that were running but how can they all have a brain fart in this instance? Mandella dosent just run a horse yo be flashy. He goes for the gusto. I cant downgrade EC or Frankles horse for this race. Tin Man won the race they didnt lose it. That all said I think it was a human error that cpmpromised Frankles and Pletchers horses.

also, it was a bad break for the outside horses, i believe it was the eventual last place horse who veered wide right at the start, compromised the start for several...and of course you're not going to really push your horse up to the front after that, just let them go easy, so the tin man didn't get as much pressure early on as he may have otherwise....

but yeah, he won it fair and square. i'd imagine several riders thought the old guy would back up to them. bad enough being wrong without being wrong in front of the stands, and on t.v.

There's no chance that Cacique or EC would have beaten The Tin Man even if the pace was faster. The Tin Man does not need to run the half in :50 to win. That made his job easier but I think he could have gone :48 3/5 and still won. He doesn't even need the lead to win. In the San Marcos at Santa Anita, they went the half in :47 1/5. The Tin Man sat 1 1/2 lengths off the lead and won the race race pretty easily. You know who he beat that day? He beat Milk It Mick. Milk It Milk came back in his next race and barely lost to English Channel and Cacique. Milk It Milk had a lot of trouble that day too. He had nowhere to run the final 1/16th of a mile. He may have actually beaten Cacique with a clean trip that day. It would have deinfitely been a photo.

So The Tin Man beat Milk It Mick a lot easier than Cacique did and that was even when The Tin Man rated in 2nd off a :47 1/5 half.

Cacique and EC were not going to beat The Tin Man no matter what today. Letting him run the half in :50, made it much easier on him but hey weren't going to beat him any way. Neither one of them were closing any ground. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have expected them to be closing too much ground with those fractions. However, I would have expected them to close a little bit. EC was actually losing ground in the stretch. Cacique was actually losing ground too. If you watch the replay, you will see that Cacique was actually within a length of The Tin Man at the head of the stretch. By the time they got to the 1/16th pole, The Tin Man had pulled away by 3 lengths. You can't use the pace as an excuse when your horses are losing ground in the stretch. That's ridiculous.

I want to second the above post. Tin Man doesn't need to loaf on the lead to win, especially not at his favorite distance of 10f. He was my pick in all of the contests yesterday; lone speed, weight-for-age, best distance, better than ever since return - 11/2 was a gift.

Where are all you Ace people? A hint for the future - form at the distance and current form matter. And I love Phoenix Reach but a race of this sort off of such a long layoff was an absurd place to put him. Nice little listed race at York would have made much more sense.

Respect due to R. Pupkin for calling this one perfectly and then, rather than gloating, taking the very nice score in stride.

Thats what winners do....they act like they've been there before and they'll be there again.

Congrats. and keep 'em coming.

Props to Mandella, one of my favorite trainers, and Rupert for being so damn opinionated on the outcome of this race.

I was originally going to bet Better Talk Now and Ace, used them both heavily in the national pick 4, but I changed my mind when it actually came time to bet this race and I was in the proverbial hole. Ended up making a nice size win bet on the Ole Tin Man and was thrilled to see a ride from Espinoza that Kent Desormeaux should watch over and over and learn from.

Great win by a horse I would have rooted for even if I didnt have a bet on.
These are so few and far between today. Horses like this give you goose bumps.

you simply can't let a horse of The Tin Man's caliber set those fractions. Big congratulations to the Old Fella and his connections. Good to see an old horse show he still has what it takes.

Great call Rupert...

I think you can use the fact that racing a minimum of 3 wide the whole way around vs right on the rail....how many lengths does that equate to in a race of that distance?

I cant say I was surprised EC got that sort of trip. I think Pletcher was bluffing when he said he was okay with that post. At the very least he needed some others to put pace pressure on Tin Man, and that obviously did not happen. I dont think anyone was beating him anyways, he looked fit for a fight on the track before the race. I got on him.

The only thing wrong with the post was the problem comming out of the gate. With the lack of early pace, the wide post could and was overcome. EC had perfect posotion except noone understood the 1:15 and noone showed THE TIN MAN any respect. He was actually bet down by the public but the compition showed no respect.