Yeah, I know ... I'm the girl who has to go and choose the name of a prominent stallion as my pen name.

And that isn't "once was" ... I still have a very important association with said publication.

LITF has actually beaten older horses three different times. He's faced older horses 6 times and he's won 3 out of 6. I don't know how you can knock Kelly's Landing. He's run some huge races the last year. He broke the track record at Churchill last year and I believe he broke the track record at Gulfstream also this year. He ran 1:08 2/5 at Gulfstream this year. Kelly's Landing looks a lot sounder physically than most sprinters. Practically all of the sprinters have problems. Silver Train has problems. All the sprinters do.

So ... I guess it is you after all ... even though you didn't provide the initials ... which I'll scramble as RMA ... so no one can possibly guess which publication we're referring to.

Welcome ... welcome ... and try to come around very frequently.

Your erudite presence is much desired ... and much in need.

1. I wasn't referring to the savvy members of this forum ... but to the more hysterical members of "another" forum.

2. But why do Lost In The Fog's "off" days always occur when he faces good horses ... and never occur when he faces palookas? It seems that the quarter cracks and detention barns only surface as factors ... when the opposition is tough.

That is nonsense that he can't stay with the pace with good sprinters. Even in the BC sprint, he was within a length of the lead and then he actually took the lead at the top of the the stretch. His problem is certainly not a lack of early speed.
In addition, he has won from off the pace. I can't belive the nonsense I read here. I remember a similar debate about Tiger Woods. Someone said that he can't win when he doesn't have the lead going into the final round. When evidence was presented that he's won tons of times when he didn't have the lead going into the final round, then the poster said that Tiger doesn't win majors when he doesn't have the lead. That is absurd and it is absurd with horses too. If a horse has shown he can rate, then he can rate. It's that simple. If you can rate against mediocre horses, you can rate against good horses. LITF has shown he can rate.
LITF obviously did not fire yesterday. He was even behind Kelly's Landing in the early going yesterday. What does that tell you? LITF normally has much more early speed than Kelly's Landing. KL is not even a speed horse. LITF was 4 lengths ahead of KL in the early part of their last race.
I can't guarantee you that LITF would have won yesterday if he would have fired. However, I can certainly guarantee you that he would have at least showed some speed and been well ahead of KL in the early going. If anyone of you honestly think that LITF ran his best yesterday, then I give up.

I didn't say that I agreed with Phalaris ... I was just explaining what she meant ... but ...

... in fact I do agree with her ... Lost In The Fog isn't capable of making an easy lead ... or any kind of early lead ... against quality sprinters.

His extremely brief lead in the BC Sprint came after 4.5f ... and was the result of an overconfident move which left him empty in the final eighth.

That's the exact tune that was played after the BC Sprint ... a real golden oldie by now.

He ran the same race yesterday as he always has ... which is good enough to win against palookas ... but not good enough to win against decent quality sprinters ... much less really good sprinters.

AS per usual, you are wrong again. Fraud Brooklynite.

Jeff Sanchez, who rode the winner said when he was running next to LITF said it was clear the horse was just spinning and not taking to the track. Pleanty of rumors at Calder Saturday that the horse wasn't 100% for the race. Factors were 1. A track lots of horses didn't like. 2. Physical questions. 3. Tons of weight. 4. He may well not be as good as last year.

When he's giving 8 lbs to another Grade 1 winner (Pomeroy) and you come on here and call the horse a fraud when you know NOTHIING about the race shows you are still a fool.

What are you talking about? LITF was behind Kelly's Landing in the early going yesterday. LITF has much more early speed than KL. KL is not a speed horse. LITF was 4 length ahead of KL in the early going in their previous race. LITF obviously did not fire yesterday. He didn't even show any early speed.
In the BC Sprint, I personally don't think that LITF fired. However, you could at leat make a case that he fired. He showed some speed and he got tired. You could at least make a halfway credible argument that he fired but just wasn't good enough. In yesterday's race, nobody in their right mind could think the horse fired. He didn't even show any early speed yesterday. He was behind KL in the early going. That was not the same race that LITF usually runs. He always shows early speed. Yesterday was the first time ever that he showed no speed. You can't argue that he showed no speed because the horses were too fast because we know that LITF is normally much faster than KL in the early going.

Thats just nuts. You use two races and throw the horse out. Thats just stupid. Again, use of what you want to see to prove a point. Is there any race that the horse has actually run in that was impressive? Just one?
The horse was too damn good to scrap so soon imo.

No ... in fact ... that's why I predicted that he would crash in the BC Sprint ... even though he was undefeated going in.

Even when running against stiffs ... he never really closed out a race with a flourish. The last furlong has always been a problem for him. Poor opposition masked it ... but stronger opposition exposed it.

While he benefited from G3 ... or worse ... opposition in G1 3YO races ... this horse is simply not a G1-quality sprinter in open company.

Oh you really went out on a limb. The BC sprint is historically a great race to go against the favorite. Fewer favorites have won this race than any other BC race. Great Call. Did you have Cajun Beat?

That has to be one of the greatest non-sequitors ever created.

The record shows that Lost In The Fog can't compete against open G1/G2-quality company. He's attempted it twice ... and finished way up the track both times.

The checkered history of Breeder's Cup races is totally irrelevant to those facts.

The historical demises of the Breeder's Cup Sprint favorites would have all the relevance in the world if they were the essence of Bold Brooklynite's argument . As per the gaggle of hyperventilating LITF goo-goos he describes, I have cruised 4-5 different racing forums for a while, and never have seen this horse compared to Dr. Fager, nor have I seen quite the cannonization he describes . But then his posts wouldn't be so dramatic, would they ? Before the BC, the horse was perfect, and had won in NY as well . He proved the most consistent sprinter and was deserving of the Eclipse last year . Saratoga County, IMO, was perhaps the best horse,but did not live to prove it. The LITF that ran in the BC unfortunately washed out pre-race, a critical factor to his detractors . Prominent early, he definitely chucked it when it counted . I agree with much of Phalaris' observations of him as a sprinter . I agree that more was expected of him than he ultimately delivered . It is hard not to dream when presented with ten perfect runs . I was a believer, though I always breathed normally . This year's model LITF is different . Physical issues have been admitted . What has not been discussed is that the horse, never pleasant tempered, has become rough and studdish . Far better animals than he have been compromised by "nads" . Count Fleet and Fair Play both lost races for this reason . Fair Play in fact, proved worthless at four because his mind was elsewhere . Fact, not excuses . LITF may run his race consistently and get beaten for whatever reason, but this last race was atypical . NO RESPONSE, NO SPEED . The con arguments would have far more merit had he gotten the lead, battled it out, lost it to a " better " horse, then finished up the track . He was a no show . To the poster who said all racehorses are frauds, I would be happier if the word fraud was replaced by fallable or not machines--otherwise the thinking is sound .

If you get outrun, it doesn't matter if you fire or not - you're not getting to the front. There's this myth that just because a horse likes to run on or near the front that he's going to get there if he wants, unless something's amiss. That's not true. Some early speed horses are quicker out of the gate. Trying to make a slower speed horse keep pace with a faster one has one likely outcome: the slower one will get beaten, and the faster he has to go than he would be comfortable with, the worse he's going to run every remaining step of the way. LITF is simply not all that fast out of the gate and thus far, he has gotten outrun whenever he meets decent horses.

I am not a Calder expert, but I know it tends to be a slowish track so the Smile fractions of 21 3/5 and 44 1/5 are probably even hotter than they would be at many tracks. Last year, LITF got an easy lead through 22 2/5 and 45 2/5 in the Carry Back and won for fun. They went a lot faster than that in the Smile and he simply couldn't cope. In fact, he ran his opening quarter about as fast as he did in the Carry Back last year, but that put him midpack against open company rather than winging on the lead against 3YOs, which is pretty much his story in a nutshell. This horse has yet to win a race against open company in which something else threw a sub-22-second opening quarter at him.

Some people seem to think that early pace is trivial, but actually, it's critically important, particularly in the case of forwardly placed sprinters. The difference between a comfortable 22-and-change quarter on a neutral track vs. a 21-and-change quarter on the same track is potentially monumental. Given that tracks vary from one race to the next, never mind between tracks, LITF has shown that when able to get an easy lead, or with only one weak horse in front of him, through 22/44-45 fractions, he's strong middle and late. That happened in the races against the nonentities in the age-restricted races that LITF shipped all over creation to run in last year. He also had no trouble with the horses that showed up for the Bay Meadows race against older. (Considering that it was scheduled for the same date as the Vosburgh and within a week of the Ancient Title and announced about three weeks in advance, you can imagine that it didn't exactly draw the best sprinters in the land.) By the way, LITF is two for five in open-age races.

Regarding Kelly's Landing, you might want to actually check the horse's lines before you speak. KL is not exactly a speed demon, but he is not without speed. Actually, he prepped for the Aristides in a CD allowance where he was battling on the lead in 21 3/5 and 44 1/5, which is faster than anything LITF has successfully handled outside of northern California and Turf Paradise. KL was two and a half lengths behind LITF after the opening quarter of the Aristides and whittled that down to a length after a half, a margin that LITF was unable to extend greatly thereafter despite a perfect scenario. To put that in perspective, KL is a G3 winner who has been unplaced in his graded stakes sprints starts away from CD.

I learned a long time ago that it's impossible to budge an opinion, so I'm not going to waste any more time researching this topic this time around. It needs to be said, however. There are those of us who feel, and have felt for some time, that LITF is overrated and we have some justification to do so.

You obviously do not have Kelly's Landing's past performances in front of you. When I made my post, I did have his past performances in front of me and they are in front of me right now. KL was 4 lengths behind LITF after a quarter mile in the Aristides. LITF has much more early speed than KL. Your contention that LITF does not have that much early speed is absurd. LITF has as much early speed as practically any horse in the country. He's gone :43 1/5. The reason that he went the half in :45 in some of his races was because that was all he needed to do to get the lead in those races. He can basically go as fast as he wants. If they go :43 3/5, he'll be either on the lead or no further back than a length.
With regard to your contention that he's overrated, he could be slightly overrated. It's possible. But that's not really the issue. The issue is whether you're opinion is being based on races that he didn't fire. He certainly didn't fire on Saturday. There was obviously something bothering him and that was why he was behind a horse early who he is normally 4 lengths in front of. And what makes you think that he ran his best in the BC Sprint? Horses are not machines. You can't ship a horse back and forth all across the country and expect them to keep firing every time. He had too tough of a campaign last year and it finally caught up to him. You can't judge a horse off one or two races. Why would you judge him off one or two bad races but not judge other horses the same way? How many bad races has Taste of Paradise run? He almsot won the BC Sprint but if you look at his Form he has lost a ton of races to mediocre horses. Look at Silver Train. Look at all of his bad races. He ran 3rd to Tani Maru in a restricted stakes race. A couple races later, he got beat by Santana Springs and Social Probabtion in the Amsterdam. He lost to Spooky Mulder this year.
People criticize LITF because he mainly faced 3 year olds last year. At least he was facing the best 3 year old sprinters. Silver Train faced nothing but 3 year olds last year and he wasn't even facing good 3 year olds. He was losing allowance races against 3 year olds. Silver Train ran 6 times last year before the BC Sprint. He ran against 3 year olds in five of those six races. The only time he faced older horses was in a non-winners other than allowance race. So Silver Train was runing against far worse 3 year olds than LITF and he was losing. How do you explain that? If you look at Silver's Train's past performances last year leading up to the BC Sprint, you can't even compare his races to LITF's races. Silver Train was facing bad 3 year olds and was losing.

It sure is hard. If you tell people he is over-rated you get accused of bashing the horse when all you're trying to do is explain reality. And that is that LITF is way over-rated. He continues to go off at ridiculously low odds compared to his chances of winning. Before the Breeders Cup I studied all his replays and I noticed one thing they had in common, he was able to comfortably dictate the pace and did not have any credible threats. His problem is that in open company against top sprinters he cannot get the lead, which is why I knew he was doomed on Saturday. Horses like Joey P, Gold Storm, etc, have real high speeds to the 1/4 and 1/2, there is no way LITF can run out on that pace and win. Also he does not seem to have a closing kick dimension to him like Nightmare Affair. LITF has a very limited kick. He simply has no answer for top sprinters. He can cruise at a pretty high rate of speed but thats not going to get the job done against top sprinters who usually have to have a sustained accelaration burst at some point in the race.

I think that people that use Bris pace and speed numbers maybe have an advantage in picking this up. Before Saturday there were two times that LITF ran very fast pace numbers to the 1/4 and both of those times he paid for it in the late pace ending up flat, the BC Sprint and his first race of this year against Carthage. In the Aristides he was able to run a 1/4 pace that was comfortable and the result was about as good as it gets for him. In the opening part of the Smile LITF got out of the gate preety good and for a short time he was in the mix. But then the real speedballs kicked it in and I believe Baze knew he had to take back a little. He tried to make a run going into the turn but that's not his game.

There a mass hysteria with this horse and people keep citing his record, 11 wins in 14 starts, several G1's , blah, blah, blah. Ok that was a great 3YO season against a suspect group, but where does that put him now. Forget about the past, he is 1 win in four starts against real competition. They will have to pick their spots for him if they keep racing him, he can win lesser sprints from time to time. However I think they know he does not belong on the path to the BC sprint. With all that said I believe, like others have suggested, that rather than further diminish his reputation that he will be retired.

If what you are saying is true, then LITF must be one of the best horses off all time. Look at all the other sprinters out there. Look at how spotty their record are. They have run several good races and several bad races. Some days they fire and some day they don't. But according to you, LITF is different. He fires every single time. He always runs the same. The only reason that he doesn't always finish in the same position is because sometimes he runs in tougher spots. The only reason he got beat on Saturday and in the BC Sprint was because those races were tough and there was too much speed but he actually ran his best on those days. If that's the case, then LITF must be one of the greatest horses ever. He ships all over the place, he runs a lot, and he almost always runs in graded stakes races, but most importantly he fires every time. He always runs his best. That's pretty amazing. He must be one of the greatest horses ever then. If you are correct then LITF is the only horse I know of that fires every time.
What you're saying is obviously absurd. No horse runs the same every time, not even LITF. All of these horses have physical problems and based on the way they are feeling, somedays they fire and other days they don't. They don't run their best every time. I know you think that LITF is a machine and runs his best every time but you are wrong.

Once again you're missing the point, Rupe. What Jim ... and several others have said ... is that Lost In The Fog isn't capable of winning against G1/G2-quality open sprinters ... whether he runs his best race or not ... which I guess you'd call "firing."

When a horse finishes towards the back of the field ... ten or more lengths behind in a 6f race ... it doesn't really matter if he ran his best race or not ... there's no way he was going to win.

Was Lost In The Fog at his very best for both the BC Sprint and Smile? Macht nichts ... no way he was going to win either race ... he's just not good enough.

Try searching the archives at horseracingtalk.net for the two weeks before and after last year's BC Sprint.

But be very careful ... the hyperventilation may knock you right out of your chair.

And note that I was making the exact same analysis then that I am now ... nine months later.

Good grief, Charlie Brown!

First it was a quarter crack ... then he was "washed out" ... then it was "just one bad race" ... now we get the biggest doozie of them all ...

... he didn't run because he was too horny!

Well ... at least it's a new tune that we hadn't heard before. I don't like the lyrics ... but it's got a good beat and I can dance to it.

Sheeeesh !!!

Alright, that is fair. You are making a legitimate argument if so say that he didn't fire but he wouldn't have won even if he did fire. I have no problem with that. But I think it's absurd to say that he ran his race on Saturday.
I'm not saying that I agree with you, but at least what you are saying is reasonable. Here is why I disagree with you though: You guys are basically saying that LITF lost the BC Sprint because he's not that good and he's not a Grade I horse. Here's the problem with that logic. There weren't really any Grade I horses in the BC Sprint. It was actually a pretty weak field last year. Who won the BC Sprint? Silver Train. Who was he? He was a 3 year old who had done way less than LITF. Silver Train was losing to bad 3 year olds all year. The knock on LITF was that he was only winning graded stakes races against 3 year olds. Silver Train was losing ungraded stakes races and allowane races agaisnt 3 year olds. So even if LITF was not a true Grade I horse, he should have still been able to beat Silver Train. How did ST win the race? He wasn't a Grade I horse. I'm sure you guys though that LITF was a much better horse than ST going into that race. ST had never done anything. The field was so bad that ST, who was consistently losing to 3 year olds, only went off at 11-1. What does that tell you? It wasn't that tough of a field. LITF would have been very competetive if he would have run his best.

You can make light of my comments calling them absurd, however I feel if you would open your mind a bit you might get it. I think I am more aware that he is not a machine than you are since you keep referring to whether he fired or not. He is a horse not a spark plug so I find this a very unsatisfying response. Instead of just trying to explain away his losses as misfires I have taken the time to look closer and have found factors that I feel are entirely consistent.

I will agree that overall LITF has run very consistently and no that doesn't make him the greatest horse of all time. It just means that he has been well taken care of and spotted well. Many times sprinters when they are off their game run way out, like 15 lenghts or more. LITF has not had races like that and overall he's been pretty consisent. His worst efforts are when he has to face one or more horses that can run a very fast pace to the quarter. I saw in another post of yours you stated that LITF has as much early speed as any horse in the country. Therein lies your mistake because that is far from true. If and when he tries to match the fastest horses for early speed he will not finish well.

How is it that he fires in every race that fits the pace description and competition level that I previously gave and he mis-fires every time he is in against tough horses? You say he is sore and has physical problems. I don't know if that's true and I don't think you know that for a fact either. I would just point out that if he had many physical problems on Saturday I think he would have finished much worse than he did. I really can't assess that race in full until I see the pace numbers. It's very possible that it was a sub par effort for him and maybe a physical issue contributed to it or it could be just what happens when a horse is over matched, they do not have a peak performance because everything doesn't set up in an optimal way for them. My main point is that even in peak condition he does not win that race. This isn't the first time that a horse dominates his age group but then shows to be much more up against it versus open company. He's not an off the pace type and yet he can't wire a top field like he faced Saturday.

Just for the record, Kelly's Landing was four lengths behind the leader after a quarter-mile in the Aristides. That leader was not LITF, who at the time was second, beaten a length and a half. LITF hasn't actually held the lead after a quarter-mile into a race in his last four starts - of which he's lost three.

Once again, he doesn't seem to be able to run his best race against big competitive fields. You can call them misfires I call them running to his ability.
When you have to run faster and wider than you are accustomed it's not as easy as when you can just sail out to the lead.

You're right last years BC was not the greatest field and LITF had no excuses. That will go down as his greatest race against older G1 horses. It wasn't a misfire. That's why he is such an easy throw-out in a race like the Smile because he is not a G1 sprinter.

Before the BC sprint I thought that LITF was going to finish up the track and used 5-6 horses in the pick three, ST being one of them, so no I for one did not think LITF was much better than ST. To me he looked good but was unproven in G1's and he remains so.

If memory serves me the leader that day, and only speed in the race, was the "quality" sprinter Exciting Metro, who was over-matched that that day.
Baze was able to get a relatively easy opening quarter but still had to hustle LITF in the stretch to hold off Kellys Landing.

Excuse me Sahib, and your 1950's homilies . And please don't dance . If you read what I said, I only said the horse is hormonal this year . I also said he is not the same, brother . I never said this was the reason he lost this race . But I did imply that studdish behavior can compromise whatever racing abilities a horse may or may not have . It is subtly different . You understand subtleties with your intelligence . I did hear you were smart. You said so yourself . Do not twist the words of others to fit your game plan . BTW, from many of your posts it is clear to me that you have absolutely no feeling for or up-close experience with an actual horse beyond the concept that one end ingests the food, and the other one ejects cookies .

Yes ... it was a weaker-than-average BC Sprint field ... but you write as if Silver Train were the only horse who defeated Lost In The Fog that day ... which is far from the case.

And you're not allowing for any improvement on Silver Train's part ... he was clearly much better at the end of last year than at the beginning ... and has demonstrated that he's even better this year ... at least at Belmont Park ... than he was last year.

Lost In The Fog seems to have been an early maturer ... who did not improve beyond the summer of his 3YO year. He was much-the-best 3YO sprinter through August ... but that's about all you can conclusively say about him.

His record subsequent to that ... speaks for itself.

It's nice to see you posting on this forum, Susan.

That other one must be really boooooooring without me if you're here.

You statement that "he fires in every race that fits the pace description and competition level that I previously gave and he mis-fires every time he is in against tough horses" is totally untrue. He's gone :43 1/5 and won by 10 lengths. The only race he lost last year was the BC Sprint. That was one race. That is hardly proof of anything. A more obvious reason for his poor performance was because he had one too many trips across the country and one too many hard races. It's not as if the BC Sprint was a great field. There were no horses in there like Speighstown or Lit De Justice. The BC sprint was won by a 3 year old named Silver Train who had been consistently losing to bad 3 year olds all year. If you thought that LITF was overmatched in the BC Sprint then I'm sure you thought that Silver Train had no chance in the world. If you didn't think the best 3 year old sprinter could win, then you obviously didn't think a mediocre 3 year old sprinter like ST could win. So you obviously misjudged the competition in the race. It wasn't that tough of a race. In fact, another 3 year old ran 4th in the race. Attila's Storm ran 4th in the BC Sprint. So you had 3 year olds finishing in two of the top four positions. That blows your argument out of the water rigth there. You were saying that LITF was not good enough to win because he was only beating 3 year olds and the BC Sprint would be mouch tougher. You were clearly wrong. A couple of 3 year olds ran 1st and 4th. LITF was clearly the best 3 year old sprinter last year, so he was obviosly good enough to compete in that race. Your contention that the pace was too fast for him was nonsense because he had gone much faster than that and still won.
And yes, I do know for a fact that the horse is hurting right now. First of all, trainers don't lie and say their horse is hurt when they're not. They often times do the opposite and say that a sore horse is fine. They don't say that a sound horse is hurt. I've been in the business for over 20 years and I can't think of any trainer saying that a sound horse was hurt. In addition to Gilchrist admitting the horse has physical problmes this year that he didn't have last year, I saw the horse gallop myself. I saw him gallop last month and he galloped sore.
With regard to whether LITF runs the same every time, he definitely does not. Some of his wins last year were much more impressive than other wins. In some of his wins, I would estimate that he ran 3-4 lengths better than in some of his less impressive wins. I'd have to pull out the videos to refresh my memory, but I remember him finishing very strong in some of those wins and not as strong in some of the other wins.
One thing that you are obviously not good at is judging a horse based on a win against a weak field. There are horses that break their maidens every day by 5 lengths. How do you know if the horse is a good horse or not? He didn't beat anyone if he simply won a maiden race. If you knew what you were looking at, you would have a very good idea of a horse's ability based on a maiden win. You need to be able to look at a horse's stride and judge a horse based on that. That is what I do for a living. That is how I can make a $500,000 offer based on a maiden win. That is why I am good at picking out 2 year olds at the sales based on 1/8 of a mile works. Going to back to the subject of buying horses who just broke their maiden, we actually offered them $800,000 for Wild Fit based on her maiden win. She didn't win by that big a margin and she didn't run that fast, but I was right about her. A few months later she ended up running 2nd in the Breeder's Cup and was sold for $3 million.

That's Prudery to you mister, former ESPN poster . No one needs you for amusement .

As I've said before, I'm not going to judge LITF on races where he didn't fire. Silver Train lost his first two races this year. He lost an allowance race against Spooky Mulder and he didn't even hit the board agaisnt Mister Fotis. Does that mean that Silver Train's other races are not good. Not at all. He obviously did not run his best against Mister Fotis. I could make the same arguments as you guys. I could say that when ST faces quality competition, he loses. I could say that he only wins when he catches weak fields. We all know that the grading of a race does not necessarily correlate with its difficulty. In general, Grade I races are tougher than Grade III races but not always. I've seen plenty of weak Grade I races. I've seen plenty of strong Grade III races that played tougher than Gade I races.
By the way, Leroidisanimaux is a good example of a horse who simply ran one too many hard races last year. That Woodbine race took too much out of him and he didn't run his best in the BC. It wasn't that the BC Mile was too tough of a race for him. He had bad feet and he didn't fire that day. He actually ran in bar-shoes in the BC Mile.

Why is there so much blind faith in an animal that has proven to be vastly overrated on multiple occasions?

Saying that he is a "fraud" or "overrated" doesnt mean he is not a good horse. He demonstrated that he is a quality horse, maybe not an "all time great" or "the best sprinter in the country" but a quality horse none the less.

But how can anyone with a logical unbiased brain not see that this horse is not anywhere close to what he was being billed as?

Yes, he won some graded stake races last year, but against what? I know, I know...Ive heard it a million times- he beat what loaded into the gate. But still, does that really mean anything? What loaded into the gate is the magical question? Hot space? Social probation? better than bonds? Querreal? There was nothing in there to test him early and if there was, there was nothing of quality that was going to run him down last year.

He has faced two fields that would have any semblance of quality and has been soundly thrashed in both. When do the excuses end? Are we that desperate for a hero?

For those that disagree, please name me just ONE quality sprinter that he has beaten over the last two years and by quality i mean top ten. Just one.

For those that disagree, how many open company races as he won?

For those that disagree, name me ONE grade 1 sprint that you honestly think he would win at this point. Just one.

Remember, this was a horse that was billed as "the eclipse champion" and an "all time great" by many. If he was being hailed as a good sprinter that was capable of stepping up and winning a couple of nice races, then "fraud" wouldnt be applicable. But after how he was hyped, races like the smile or the comebacker at golden gate should have been breezes.

There weren't any great sprinters last year. LITF may not be an all-time great sprinter. I'm sure he could not beat Ghostazapper, Speighstown, Lit De Justice, or several others. LITF may not be that great of a sprinter, but last year I think he was the best sprinter. Who else was there? We really didn't have any consistent Grade I or Grade II sprinters. That is why the first three finishers in the BC Sprint were Silver Train, Taste of Paradise, and Lion Tamer. Who did Silver Train ever beat? Who ran 2nd in the BC Sprint? Taste of Paradise. He hadn't won a race all year. He was 0 for 6. Not only did he have no wins, he didn't even have any 2nds. Then he stepped up and won the Vosburgh at 27-1 and then ran 2nd in the BC Sprint. Taste of Paradise consistently showed all year that he couldn't even win a Grade II or Grade III. How did he win the Vosburgh? He won for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that the race did not play like a Grade I. Tiger Heart ran 2nd. Tiger Heart had never even placed in a graded race before.
You guys are just too caught up with the grade of the race. There were really no true Grade I horses last year. LITF had a much better record than anyone else last year. If you didn't give him the eclispe for best sprinter, you would have had to given it to Silver Train. People couldn't give it to Silver Train because his record was simply inferior to LITF. Both horses had pretty much run against 3 yer olds all year, but LITF was running against the best 3 year olds and he kept winning. ST was losing to medicore 3 year old. They weren't going to give the award to ST off the one big win. The rest of his year was just not good enough.

[quote=dalakhani]Why is there so much blind faith in an animal that has proven to be vastly overrated on multiple occasions?

According to that logic, every sprinter out there has proven to be vastly overrated on multiple occasions. Silver Train gets beat time and time again. he's only won 6 times out of 16 races. According to your logic, he has proven time and time again that he is vastly overrated. You could say the same thing for every horse in that race on Saturday.
LITF has hardly proven time and time again that he is overrated. He's only lost 3 times in his entire career.
Don't give me that argument that his record is bad facing older horses in graded races. It's not true. He has faced older horses in graded races 3 times. He's won 1 out of 3. That means he's batting .333. That's probably a better batting average than practically every horse in that race on Saturay. How many of those are batting over .333 in graded races against older horses. Probably not too many. And many of us believe that LITF did not fire in his two defeats.

So what are you saying? That he was a deserving champion? There may not have been a "worthy" champion last year and LITF may have been the best of a bad lot. But does that mean he still wasnt overrated?

You said earlier in this thread that you wont "judge him when he doesnt fire" but when do you judge him if that is the case? When he is dancing past overmatched garbage?

Let me give you what i have heard over the last couple of months and tell me what you think:

Sept 05- he doesnt need to go to belmont for a prep. Nah...he just needs to stay home and collect a check and not tire himself out before the big dance. This is one of the best sprinters of all time.

Oct 05- (after bc loss) he just wasnt himself today. It just wasnt him. I mean- look who beat him. Those horses arent any good and it proves that he just wasnt right. Too much travel.

April 06- He doesnt need to go to gulfstream for the richter scale or Aqueduct for the carter. For the first time out, lets just give him an easy preop.

May 06- (after loss) The layoff and the weight took its toll. It wasnt the real foggy. You will see next time.

June 06- (after aristides win) That was the real fog today. It didnt matter what he beat, he beat what dared to load against him.

July 06- (after loss in smile) He didnt show up today. Nope- he didnt fire. Hes acting studdish. He has a quarter crack. The post hurt. He didnt like the track. He was giving too much weight. This wasnt the real fog.



When is it ever going to be "the real fog" that loses? Horses dont "fire" for a reason and when you disregard the factors that lead to a hrose not "firing" you are being blinded by the hype. It seems fog doesnt "fire" when there is a horse in the race that is capable of beating him. Its as simple as that.

He isnt a pig but he isnt close to being the best sprinter in the country. And if that is the case, he is a fraud.

[quote=Rupert Pupkin]No one called silver train "the best sprinter in the country" and certainly no one ever said that the train was an all time great. When the train lost, there werent a million excuses- he just lost.

There wasnt a tenth of the hype surrounding any of the horses in that race compared to LITF. Not a tenth. Based on the hype, he should have spanked those horses regardless of the excuses.

Quit trying to talk around the point here. The point is that he was vastly overrated. Can you actually disagree with that?

[quote=dalakhani] No, I really don't think he was overrated. What he did last year was pretty remarkable. It's tough for sprinters to stay in form for long periods. Sprinters run so fast that it's hard to keep them sound. This horse was being shipped all over the place running in gradedrace after graded race and he kept winning. I'm not a big speed figure guy and I did not see his first two careeer races. They gave him huge numbers in those races and since I had not seen the races, I was very skeptical. Then he went down to Gulfstream and ran against some pretty good horses and won easily. I was still somewhat skeptical because Gulfstream seemed a little like Keeneland to me at times. It seemed like there was a speed bias there and it also seemed like some horses didn't handle the track. Then he won at Gulfstream again but I was still somewhat skeptical because it was Gulfstream. Then he went to New York and won a grade III race easily in a very fast time. Then he went to Golden Gate and won by 10 in 1:07 1/5. Then he won a grade II in New York, followed by a grade II in Florida, followed by a grade I in New York. Then he beat older horses at Bay Meadows in 1:08. In addition, he looked really good doing it in most of these races. That's the most important thing to me. I ca make a pretty good judgement of a horse's ability even if they beat nobody. Their stride is the most impotant thing. I thought that Roses in May looked like one of the best horses I'd seen in years based on an allowance win. High Fly was just the opposite. He was winning, but he looked awful doing it. He had a really bad way of moving and he was really sore. When you're in this business, you will never make any money buying horses or betting on horses, if you don't see a horse's potential until he beats the best horses in a big race. In the case of LITF, it didn't take a genuis to figure out he was a really good horse after he won 10 races in a row at multiple tracks including 5 graded races. It wasn't just who he was beating. It was the way he was moving(his stride), it was the margin of victory, and it was the huge numbers he was running. He was definitely the real deal.

Rupert
 

RP “You statement that "he fires in every race that fits the pace description and competition level that I previously gave and he mis-fires every time he is in against tough horses" is totally untrue. He's gone :43 1/5 and won by 10 lengths. “

That was at Golden Gate and it was a three horse field!!!! You should pay less attention to times and more to pace figures, the quality of the competition, and the way the horse ran, how many obstacles did he overcome, how hard was he asked, etc.

RP “The only race he lost last year was the BC Sprint. That was one race. That is hardly proof of anything. A more obvious reason for his poor performance was because he had one too many trips across the country and one too many hard races. “

Is it really more likely that it was due to the travel? Take a look at the following. I alluded to his performances being predictable with the Bris pace and speed figures.
Below I am using Bris terms E1-pace figure to the quarter, E2-pace figure to the half, LP-pace figure from the half to the end, SPD-final speed figure. Here is the average pace profile for LITF. This is an average of all his races.
E1 E2 LP SPD
95 107 92 102

Now here are the figures he ran in his last four races prior to the Smile

Aristides - finished first
E1 E2 LP SPD
88 103 102 107

Golden Gate sprint - finished second in four horse field. Only one real competitor.
E1 E2 LP SPD
101 110 81 96

BC - Sprint - finished seventh
E1 E2 LP SPD
100 115 82 100

Bay Meadows Speed – finished first in a five horse field
E1 E2 LP SPD
94 103 105 109

You say he didn’t fire in the races that he lost. I am saying that he most definitely did fire and he actually ran faster initial pace figures than he normally does to the quarter and the half. In fact they were too fast for him to sustain and his late pace suffered as well as his speed. Those races caused him to work harder early than he did when he went 43 and change against two horses at GG. I don’t know the numbers for the Smile yet but I’m sure that they were huge for E1 and E2. LITF looks to have run his worst race to date but I will also say that I think it was the most challenging field he’s faced in terms of front end speed.

Maybe it’s you who needs to learn a bit more on evaluating horses when they race against weak fields. I was the one who wasn’t fooled by his wins over weak fields. Frankly this is so obvious I’m surprised that it is taking people so long to catch on.

Retirement a possibility for Lost in the Fog
By CHUCK DYBDAL
In the wake of Lost in the Fog's ninth-place finish Saturday in the Grade 2 Smile Sprint at Calder, trainer Greg Gilchrist said that he and owner Harry Aleo are giving thought to retiring the colt. Lost in the Fog, the champion sprinter of 2005, will get a rest, Gilchrist said, and a decision on his future will be made when he returns to training.

"We're not leaning one way or the other," he said. "We'll give him time to get his feet underneath him and see how he is. We want to determine if he can be competitive at the level he should be. If it were going to take two or three months to bring him back, and there was only one race left for him this year, we'd probably retire him."

Gilchrist said Lost in the Fog didn't seem to try in the Smile, in which he carried high weight of 125 pounds and was the even-money favorite. Aleo and Gilchrist have said that Lost in the Fog, a 4-year-old by Lost Soldier, would race as both a 4-year-old and 5-year-old, and this is the first time they have questioned that plan.

"You can't put a positive spin on it," Gilchrist said. "It's the first time I've seen him not try. He carried a lot of weight, but that had nothing to do with running that poorly. He's got a lot of problems, things like quarter cracks and bumps and bruises. It's nothing life-threatening or career-ending, but they catch up with him."

Earlier at Calder on Saturday, the Gilchrist-trained Victorina won the Grade 3 Azalea Breeders' Cup Stakes. Gilchrist said he expected a good race out of Victorina but that he wasn't sure how Lost in the Fog would run.

"There were no surprises for me Saturday," trainer Greg Gilchrist said. "I wasn't surprised she ran well, and it didn't surprise me the other horse didn't."

Lost in the Fog and Victorina, both owned by Aleo, were scheduled to arrive at Golden Gate Fields late Tuesday afternoon.