LOL!!! Guy offered me 100 bucks to pick up bubbles aka "the wrecking ball" and I declined. Ah good ole piggy Peggy!! Is she still married? That was one crazy chick.

Bubbles! I remember going to your frat party my first week on campus and seeing her hanging around waiting for her next Mr. Right to sweep her off her feet! Gosh I miss those days, life was so easy. Had absolutely no worries in the world.

Oracle, I remember you dismissing Barbaro because he ran on turf and his dirt race was on a muddy surface. I dont remember you ever oohhhing and awwing this horse in the spring. But I do remember you mentioning him when he broke his maiden.

mike and i were the first on the barbero train on the other board...ive liked him and played him in every future pool and basicly said he was the derby winner after the fla derby..

I don't think anyone is meaning to throw cold water on your enthusiasm, Oracle, but there are plenty of well-bred (better bred than this one, though he's well-bred himself, obviously) babies that haven't even begun serious training yet. As for Todd's other 2 year olds, again - they look like the typical, precocious colts that we all get excited about (and understandably so - I love 2 year olds; they're so promising and it's fun when you latch onto one) early on. So far, Out of Gwedda and Scat Daddy are fast, but we've seen these types before - they end up fading once the distances lengthen and the blue-bloods start showing up. Take my comments with a grain of salt, though - I just have a problem, period, giving any horse any race (this is nothing personal against Circular Quay) or over-hyping them off of a few starts.

Todd actually also has a very nice 2 year old filly named Rags To Riches; she's a 1/2 to Jazil and ran a sneaky good fourth on Belmont Day at Churchill Downs (after a slow start and wide trip). She's one who will certainly love longer distances..........It does seem like every spring we say that Pletcher will dominate the baby races and he does......the early ones. Come the longer, bigger Fall races, others have passed his babies by.

Why is everyone so hung up on breeding?

Once they hit the track it means very little. Was everyone drueling over Afleet Alex's breeding in his 2yo year, no, but he worked out pretty well. I guess what I am trying to say is this whole breeding thing, makes me a little crazy, because it's not like at the 1/8th pole they stop the race and say "well I am by so and so, so I should win." I don't get why about this time of year, everyone checks the breeding of what some of these trainers are holding and deems them Triple Crown Prospects, that may be, but let's get them on the track. That is 10 times more insane than what Oracle is saying, at least this horse showed he could win. I don't care if CQ was by a $5k Claimer, when I finally got home and watched the race last night, I thought it was impressive, I liked the way he was going at the end.

Breeding is everything if you are talking KY Derby prospect. So many of these 2yr olds are bred for speed that won't make it past 8F but can win in these shorter races.

Smarty could carry his speed short and long, I don't care who a horse is by, once they prove it on the track. People that sit around and study pedigrees and carry on and on with the better bred nonsense, usually no very little else except pedigrees and who's better bred. These are the same people that said Barbaro couldn't win the Derby, because of RAN in the Dam sire line, that didn't work out so good for them....

Pedigree does matter! There are always going to be exceptions to the rule, but if a horse like this 2yo breaks his maiden impressively (I just watched it, and damn it WAS impressive) the fact that he is by a horse that won the Derby, Belmont, and Travers makes it MORE LIKELY that he will like the added distance of races like the Champaign or the BC Juvenile. Are there horses that run differently on the track then their pedigree indicates? OF COURSE! But in general there IS a reason that a horse like Thunder Gulch had a higher stud fee than some other - less accomplished - stallions. In addition to being by Thunder Gulch, this 2yo's dam (Circle of Life) was also a G1 winner. This pedigree + an impressive debut = a horse to watch for the major 2 yo stakes this summer and fall.

You make a valid arguement, but to say that there's "better bred" horses that are waiting to run and will be better horses, because of their pedigree, that's nonsense. There's also reasons why high priced horses are busts as well, remember Checkov, we had people annointing him as a great horse, because he cost $4 million, where's he today, has he cleared NW1X?

lol pedigrees are not the answer, lol. ability is

Pedigrees mean everything. Why do you think people pay more for good pedigrees. 99% percent of the time the horses that are the best have the best pedigree. Case closed.

The Pedigree Experts are in full effect today, why don't you ask the people who bought Checkov(ofcourse they have more money than they know what to do with, but they aren't stupid), if they thought they bought a good pedigree?

Yeah only idiots accept that at face value though. Ability kicks the **** out of pedigree everytime. Oh, and you mark up pedigree and resell it easily to suckers.;)

I can't wait to the Green Monkey runs, you guys will have a National Holiday....

I think the peformance people like him better than the pedigree people. His pedigree is nice but not that nice. He was bought off his performance in some work. Still don't get the price on that horse.

It's the truth, though. I'm sure CQ was very impressive, but there ARE plenty of well-bred and/or talented horses out there that haven't set foot on a track yet. There may yet be some babies that are better than CQ or there may not be - I don't like to make premature proclamations, that's all. If other's don't believe it's premature, that's fine too. We'll know in a few months, anyway.

Now, this I don't begin to follow. Are there really "pedigree people" and "performance people?" Do people really pay big $$ for a yearling that ran one of those 10 second eights with a lousy pedigree or, conversely, pay high paper for a well bred yearling that looks poor on the track and visually? If so, I gotta get me in the yearling business.

To me, pedigree is like the rich father who gets you a high paying sales gig. After you're hired, if you don't hit your numbers, you're still gone. Same goes for the well bred colt or filly. I cannot imagine a fancy pedigree for horse that runs lousy once it hits the track is any greater consolation than still having the rich father the day security walks you out the door when you've been canned.

Sell or starve. Perform or perish. That's how the big kids play.

Really? Do you know for certain that there aren't any better bred horses waiting to run? They've all run already? How do you know there aren't ten two year olds better than CQ (no matter their pedigrees)? Are we all supposed to agree with you that this is the greatest two year old of the year? If so, I beg to differ. He may end up proving to be that or he may end up a dud- he may end up being somewhere in between. All I am saying is that it is VERY early in the baby season for me to be declaring this colt a champion. By the way, there have been plenty of good horses with great pedigrees, too.

The point I was trying to make is that, IMO, it's too early to make judgments like this - babies have just started to run and no matter how talented CQ is, there could be more talented babies (or not) waiting in the wings. I have zero problem with anyone who wants to declare CQ the best, but by the same token, I would hope that people who disagree are accorded the same consideration.

In the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's ... there were 26 champions ... of all ages and sex ... who made their 2YO debuts in February, March, or April.

25 of them had full, injury-free careers ... of the 26 ... only Hail To Reason had his career compromised by injury.

The best strategy was ... is ... and always will be ... to run them early and often. Young horses must learn what it means to be professional athletes ... and must be raced into proper condition to accomplish that.

"Spacing" races and running horses "fresh" ... only produces the type of china dolls ... like Barbaro ... who can't physically or mentally handle the pressure of G1 racing.

As to Mr. Pletcher ... what else is new? He always has stables full of the best-bred horses ... and has rightfully become known as the "King Of The MSW Sprints." But when the 2YO colts have to go two turns in G1 races ... or the older colts have to go 10f ... it's bye-bye Toddie.

Every year he sets a new record for Triple Crown nominess ... and every year he comes up empty. He's a very accomplished trainer ... and a real nice guy ... but he's never developed a colt into a champion at classic distances ... though he's had several hundred opportunites to do so. Maybe some day he will ... so please wake me from my nap when he does.

Tell me how you quantify better bred?

I think he's a nice horse and we'll see what he does, who knows?

There certainly could be more talented horses though, not better bred, because that's an opinion, not a fact. If they are faster and beat him, they are more talented, not better bred.

Horses today are much more fragile than they were back then. Drugs and breeding have left us with 2yr olds that need time to develop.

Your Barbaro "China doll" comment is perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever read. Get a life.

The only smart thing I read on this entire thread.

I have no problem leaving pedigree out of the equation - the horse has a very nice pedigree, period. He clearly looks like a nice colt (at the very least), so I will clarify my comments to say that there may be some more talented horses that haven't run yet....or there may not be. We won't know until the year continues to progress.

Then I agree with that statement. I am not laying any claim to what this horse might do. My point was that just because there might be what is perceived to be "better bred" horses waiting to run, that they would beat him, they would beat him, because they were better horses.

Just so you guys know, if this horse does anything, Oracle will pull up this post and ram it down your throats, so get ready...

You throw enough posts out there you eventually will say something right. ;)

You may be right ... do you know of any statistically reliable studies which support the proposition that today's horses are more fragile? I'd be interested in learning more ... and perhaps other Forum members would too ... if you can point us towards the right data.

Pletcher has another nice 2 year old running today in the 8th race at Churchill. Her name is Chagall. I saw her work at the FS 2 year old sale in Florida. She worked an 1/8th in :10 2/5. She looks like she can reall run. They bought her out of that sale for $825,000.

I will take the word of the guys at Three Chimneys. Any study would be unreliable because they just don't run as often in their careers. The data suggests that horses careers are now shorter than they were, across all levels.

I also got a chuckle out of the Barbaro/China Doll comment. But I wouldn't think it's far dumber than some of the other comments on this thread, a couple of yours included. You've gone far out of your way to be critical of others discussing a colt's impressive debut. You were wrong about the colt being 3/5 (paid $4.20) and you're probably wrong about him being 6/5 in the Sanford.

It's really meaningless to infer or say as you did that a debut at 5.5f is useless for a 2yo in terms of prepping for his 3yo season. Next year is so far away that sort of comment sounds silly to me. It's obvious the colt was ready and Pletcher decided -- correctly -- that yesterday's race was the right place to start.

Nobody proclaimed him a Triple Crown winner. He's just a very nice colt who ran a super debut.

good luck.

On the Thoro-Graph "Ask the Experts" forum, there's been a lot about this... Some of Jerry's Kids have been doing various studies, analyses on the tpoic.. Haven't seen the conclusions though...

The shorter careers may be due to factors other than physical fragility. I'm mainly referring to racing at the G1 level.

It's clear that G1-level horses are raced far less than in the past ... but I don't think it's because they're any more fragile. In the past ... horses who began their racing careers early on ... and who raced frequently ... tended to stay sounder longer.

Maybe it was Darwinian in that they were the sounder specimens to begin with ... but I believe that being a G1 professional athlete requires extraordinary physical and mental training ... which today's horses simply aren't getting.

Don't see how you can do a study on just G1 horses. Pletcher did just have to euthanize Venetian Sunset, one of his top 4yr olds, so there is another quality horse that went down, but I don't know if it was a bad step or just a fragile horse. I believe VS was plagued by injuries his entire career, but not positive on that one.

Didn't seem to hurt Secretariat, Affirmed and Alydar, et. al. The odd thing is that in the last 20 years trainers have cut back on running 2yos earlier in the year in hopes they will last longer at 3, yet it seems to be having the opposite effect. Round Table won the Keeneland SPRING meet 2yo stakes and lasted forever.

Sorry to bust the bubble, but the people who really KNOW pedigrees had no doubt about Barbaro; his sire stayed and his dam stayed. The half-baked pedigree ideas of the average racing analyst do not reflect the opinions of the pedigree consultants to top breeders and other real experts. Check out what Avalyn Hunter wrote at the Blood-Horse (or was it TT?).

LOL, another pedigree blowhard!

Sorry, that was uncalled for, I just have no time for the whole breeding nonsense. If I ever need a cure for insomnia, I would read that article. Ofcourse breeding is important, but to say that a certain horse will be good, based on breeding makes my headspin. I know people love to research and go back and this and that and if that's your cup of tea, go for it. Once they hit the track and show talent, it doesn't matter what their breeding is. If you go back far enough in any horses pedigree, they're probably all well bred, just because someone is willing to shell out millions doesn't make the horse a champion or well bred.

I think you are still missing the point. A nice pedigree DOES NOT ensure good on-track performance. I don't think anybody would be foolish enough to argue that, because there are tons of brilliantly bred horses who haven't done squat. Green Monkey may be another. I am one of those that DOES think pedigree matters, but I won't be taking part in any Green Monkey Day parades. The point remains that pedigree can be an important factor in determining a horse's ability, especially his or her ability to stretch out to longer distances. Is it the only factor? Of course not. But it is A factor, which (getting back to the original point) makes this Thunder Gulch colt's debut all the more interesting.

just for fun... here's the original Cirqular Quay thread. Though he's faster and better now, I still think his maiden win was his most impressive race.