Got a very mediocre Beyer of 80 according to Dan Illman...........Tiny Woods got a 90

I dont care about the beyer in this case.....He was green as hell and a first time starter. He is bred all day for dirt, not turf... He is not like POTN, a Baffert who was not really expected to move up on dirt, with this horse there is every reasson to think he will be much better on dirt.

I would take an 80 Beyer first time out, 100 times out of 100. What did you think, he would run a 113?

I thought it would be closer to 83/84, then 80, but I agree...AND it's not like debuting at 2 turns is easy. I keep telling myself to ignore BSF (especially in a race like Take Control's) and then I go out and it's the first thing I look for.

No, and I wouldn't even necessarily want him to run a 90 first out. I was comparing it to Tiny Woods and a few other promising horses that got good BSF. Maybe I harped on it because whenever a horse gets an "ok" Beyer, you hear that he's too slow, that kind of thing. Clearly that's not what people thought reading the various message boards, but overall, BSF seem to be how people judge horses.

Betsy,

Tiny Woods was in an ALW.. going 6f.. in his 4th career start. He got a 79 in his career debut and, after the fiasco at Saratoga, got an 80 in his 3rd start.

If you want to use the Beyers as a measure, Take Control is already ahead of Tiny Woods on the development curve getting an 80 in a debut race going a mile.

That's all true, Steve. I'm annoyed with myself for even being concerned with it, to be honest.

And to be fair, the pace was REALLY slow in the Take Control race, :48.61 to the half- the two MCL's went :46.45 and :47.97 to the half. I'd like to know the other route Beyers on the card so we have a view on how they split the variant. Right now, Deal Breaker should get a 77 if they didn't split it and that would be too low.

That's what I was thinking, glad to hear it from you Steve because my ability to gauge these things only goes so far. I took heart that he was able to do this well earlier than Baffert expected and was mentally prepared for it.

4th: Elmer N Mort (1m, MDN $25k) 65
5th: Fiery Trippi (8.5f, $12.5k CLM) 83
6th: Country Tough (1m, MDN $25k) 68
7th: Deal Breaker (8.5f, OC 62k/N2X) 88

I just watched the replay. I thought for going two turns in his debut he looked pretty good. We don't how he would have reacted to a quicker pace. But when he got clear he looked pretty impressive. A nice win.