I agree Tagg is a great trainer and nowhere am I telling Tagg how to train his horse. I was merely stating an opinion that as a fan would like to see him run in the Classic. None on the top contenders look like Ghostzapper to me. The race could be run 5 times and there could 5 different winners b/c the top contenders are pretty equal so I dont think it would be the craziest idea.

But he still wouldn't be one of them.

OK so Diamond Stripes just came up with a 105 while beating Xchanger by less than a length in the Meadowlands Cup. So I guess now Xchanger is faster than Nobiz. Student Council sure did look faster running that 97 figure in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, proving that the slow time and figure of the Pacific Classic wasn't a fluke. Zanjero is faster? How do u say Tiago is faster but maybe Awesome Gem is slower when Awesome Gem just lost by a nose to Tiago? Either u think they are both faster or both maybe slower.

The other poster mentioned Fairbanks, Master Command, Political Force and Grasshopper. Apparently he missed Grasshopper's run in Louisiana. I don't know if the other three are even pointed to the race and even if they are, none of them have ever shown the consistency to make u believe that they are going to throw up their best race. Nobiz might not be the fifth or sixth best horse. But if he's truly improved as a racehorse and it's not just the grass, there is no way that I'd say that those horses that have been named are proven better than him.

Unless they really feel like he doesn't want 10f on dirt and that his improvement is strictly a result of the switch to grass, I don't think taking a shot is a bad idea.

neither did Volponi, Cat Thief and Arcangues among others

Precisely. There's a difference between a race that's wide open due to an abundance of talent and one that's wide open because of a dearth of talent. This year's Classic is the former and Nobiz would be one of the slowest horses in the field because of it.

I wasn't as familiar with Awesome Gem's PPs, so I didn't include him -- but I guess you're right. He's probably a faster 10f dirt horse too. Make that ten.

Zanjero is capable of running a figure in the triple digits. Diamond Stripes has run more than one. Nobiz has proven capable of running in the very low 100s on his better days, at his best distances, on dirt.

So really, anyone who can run a figure of 102 on dirt can compete with Nobiz And Student Council has run a 99 and a 97, both at a mile and a quarter, which put him within a few points of Nobiz's better dirt Beyers. I'm hardly saying that Student Council is a legit contender to take the BC Classic, but he just about equally as unlikely as Nobiz would have been.

i don't think tagg is making a mistake at all. i think nobiz doesn't fit in either turf race, and i see no reason to run him in the classic. he runs better on turf, tagg said he has run down issues when on dirt.

everyone talks about trainers being too ambitious with spotting, or not running often enough. neither apply here.
tagg has a race in mind, at the ideal distance for his horse. what's wrong with that? not all bc races fit all horses, this being one of them.

and student council may well go to japan rather than the bc. perhaps they think he has a better shot there.
now if only more people would make these kinds of decisions with their supposed derby horses.

So we are basically agreeing then. You are acknowledging that once you get past what I call the Big Four, Nobiz fits right in with the rest of them. And it's worth keeping in mind that when Nobiz was running his best dirt figures, it was early in the year. I don't think it's too outrageous to think that there is a possibility that he's a better horse now than he was in the spring.

Possibility? Sure. Likely? Nah. We're talking about a horse that has barely developed a step figure-wise throughout his career, and that's exactly what made him somewhat of a bust on the Triple Crown trail. I find it hard to believe that he'd develop more in three months of racing (last on dirt in July, getting smacked by Any Given Saturday) than he did through his first 10.

When you have a valuable and talented, if unspectacular, dirt horse who may turn out to be a super turf runner, "we could possibly be the fifth fastest horse in this race" doesn't seem to me like enough justification for a Classic try.

So one 93 Beyer offsets the fact that Grasshopper has two Beyers higher than anything Nobiz has run? What is Nobiz's high Beyer on the dirt, like a 98? So his best day can beat Grasshopper's worst by 3 lengths. Plus Grasshopper has his best figure at 10 furlongs.

This thread is insane. Looney Tunes.

That's all folks.

No, we are not agreeing. Diamond Stripes is faster than Nobiz. Tiago is faster than Nobiz, and by proxy Awesome Gem would be too.

That puts him at least ninth on paper after you get past the obvious five.

So he'd get to scrum with Zanjero and Student Council for the last-place trifecta spots in my hypothetical field.

Sounds like a perfect reason for them to send him to the Classic. He's not even in the same zip code as the types of horses who are going to fight for the win, and is quite arguably, not even a contender for a midpack finish given the likely field.

The horse is exactly as fast on dirt this year as he was in his very first start. Horses like that don't win the BC Classic because they pop some decent race on rock hard turf at Belmont.

You're getting a bit carried away. Diamond Stripes would easily beat him, and that horse's best shot is to fill out the super.

That Nobiz wasn't developing, figure-wise, from his 2yo to his 3yo season was disturbing to me. It made me think that he wasn't going to improve at all and had reached his top level early. But I don't know if it's fair to say that he's not improving anymore based on his recent figures. Turf figures are basically useless. Granted, his last dirt figure in the Dwyer, didn't seem to indicate that he had turned any kind of corner but his last couple make me wonder. Especially this past weekend. He looked like a much better horse than I've ever seen him look. It wasn't the time or the figure but the way he ran. I don't think it would even take much improvement from where he was in the spring to put him right in the picture here and if one or more of the top ones doesn't bring his "A game", who knows? And let's be honest. Nobody is saying that Street Sense and Hard Spun don't belong and their numbers this summer don't suggest they blow Nobiz away. In fact, because SS ran a 108 in the BC Juvenile and a 111 in the Preakness before his last couple, it could also be argued that he hasn't developed either. Only in his case, he was already a little higher than Nobiz. I just don't see any reason why SS can be considered a prime contender while running a 108 in the Travers and Nobiz shouldn't even be considered.

If this was a situation where they were making a decision between the Classic and one of the other BC races, even though I think the Classic attempt would be worth taking, I could understand going in another race. But I'm not sure why running in the Classic, even if he finished dead last, would stop him from maybe becoming, as u put it, a super turf runner.

You know, I'd bet that prior to this past weekend, you would have told me that Diamond Stripes would easily beat Xchanger too. Yet he was just all out to hold off that one in NJ.

The fact is that all of you that are saying Nobiz would have no shot are basing that on the fact that you believe he's no better now than he's ever been. I don't concede that as the truth. If it is the truth, then you are right. If he has improved from the spring though, his numbers would fit in with the rest of the field. I'm not arguing that he's a threat to win the race. I don't think he is. I think he rates behind the top four. Maybe that alone is reason not to look at the race if they would be going in with their best hope being third or fourth. But when that third or fourth is in the BC Classic, I can live with that.

That's fine. We're obviously thinking very differently about things.

By the way, when you now say "top four" which of Street Sense, Hard Spun, Lawyer Ron, Curlin, or Any Given Saturday are you insinuating that he is ahead of? Ask pretty much anyone, and he's not even in the same league as those guys.

You think he's fifth or sixth best on paper and capable of bring "third or fourth". I think that's a pipe dream and that he maybe gets the better of Student Council.

Good thing he's not going. It might have been hard for you to look back at this thread after he got abused through furlongs number nine and ten.

amen to that. i thought i was the only one who thought this thread makes no sense.

i've seen some of morty's threads that left me less perplexed!

I'd say that the Classic would be pretty strenuous and require more rigorous training than perhaps, training up to the Hollywood Derby would. The horse may have finally found his niche, keep him where he's at.

Because of the way I think the race will be run, I don't give Hard Spun a shot in hell of doing anything. The others are my top four and frankly, I'm not sold on Street Sense or Any Given Saturday. If they both run their best races, I think they are in the mix. But just as people have been saying about Nobiz, I'm not sure that I see a better SS now than I did at this time last year. His Travers figure wasn't any better than the Juvenile and wasn't as good as his Derby and Preakness. Whereas usually the top 3yo's improve as the year goes on (Curlin, AGS and Hard Spun have), Street Sense has gone the wrong way. With AGS, he improved a ton in winning the Dwyer and the Haskell but I think his last race tempered a lot of the growing enthusiam about him. I feel that if Curlin and Lawyer Ron both run theirs, they are the only two that matter here. And I'm leery of that happening. The JCGC was a very tough race and it wouldn't be surprising to see one of them regress from it. For Lawyer Ron, it was his third straight 114+ race. Can he produce a fourth straight, all in the span of two months, at a distance that's a touch beyond his best, with another quality horse like Hard Spun challenging him up front instead of the pig from the JCGC?

I know all of this has made it seem like I'm sold on Nobiz having a shot to win. I'm not at all. I just am less sold on the quality and strengths of the others than it seems like most people are.