Agree, and I also would.

I like Game Winner and think he is the most likely of the horses to hit the board. But to win? As consistent as he’s been, he hasn’t taken that next step...yet. I also suspect the California horses are a little overrated this year.

Plus, we saw his odds rise to 7-1 in Pool 4, and that was before Omaha Beach won the Arkansas Derby. So I think we see his odds end up above 6-1.

Steve - I’ve seen a few times on HRN where it says Mott hasn’t decided on a jockey for Country House. Are they just way behind you or is Country House still riderless?

:rolleyes:

I know. I shouldn’t doubt you.

Nice to see you back on DT.
I have always respected your opinions.
Good luck yo you!

I’m starting to come around on Roadster. But I’m still having a heck of a time figuring out this race.

The draw will help

Corey Lanerie gets on Cutting Humor..

Looking a little bit into horses with 4 or fewer starts. Just looked into the last 10 years but was interested to see the the trainers for those horses. If I went back 11 years, the numbers would actually look better for lightly raced horses since Big Brown and Denis of Cork both finished in the money in 2008.

Pletcher: 9 starts, 1 finish in Top 5 (Danza in 2014)
Baffert: 4 starts, 2 finishes in Top 5 (Justify in 2018, Bodemeister in 2012)
Brown: 2 starts, 0 finishes in Top 5 (My Man Sam finished 11th, Shagaf DNF in 2016)
Motion: 1 start, 1 Winner (Animal Kingdom in 2011)
Hollendorfer: 1 start, 1 finish in Top 5 (Battle of Midway in 2017)
Sharp: 1 start, 0 finishes in Top 5 (Girvin finished 13th in 2017)
Mott: 1 start, 0 finishes in Top 5 (Hofburg finished 7th in 2018)
Zito: 1 start, 0 finishes in Top 5 (Dialed In finished 8th in 2011)
Ice: 1 start, 0 finishes in Top 5 (Summer Bird finished 17th in 2009)

For Pletcher, Noble Indy finished 17th, Magnum Moon 19th, Patch 14th, Outwork 14th, Materiality 6th, Itsaknockout 9th, Verrazano 14th, Dunkirk 15th. Baffert’s other horses in that time frame were Chitu who finished 9th in 2014 and Midnight Interlude, 16th in 2011.

Anyway, for trainers not named Pletcher, they’ve got a record of 12-2-1-1, which is 17% win, 33% ITM. All-time, Baffert has a Derby record of 28-5-3-3, which is 18% win, 39% ITM.

I guess my thought is - is the fact that a horse has 4 or fewer starts really that big of a negative for them? It’s not exactly fair to just throw out Pletcher’s starters but he also sends a lot of lightly raced horses to the derby and he’s clearly skewing the numbers in recent years.

Shoulda stuck around.

I still like Anothertwistafate but his performance in the Lexington shows me that he was not going to be ready for the Derby. Hopefully he benefits from coming back a little bit fresher in 3 weeks.

So the "real" winner is bypassing?

Curious to see how the morning line plays out here!

Hell, Alwaysmining has as good a shot as any of those.

I was just thinking about this - Flavien Prat decided to get off Omaha Beach earlier this year and was replaced with Mike Smith. I felt bad for him when Omaha Beach ended up running so well after he had switched horses. I can’t even remember who he chose over Omaha Beach. Was it Galilean? Anyway, he was one of the last jockeys to get a ride in the derby, obviously picking up Country House.

The two jockeys who rode Country House prior to Prat - Joel Rosario and Luis Saez - both ended up on two of the top horses and at least arguably cost their horses the win (Rosario going too wide, Saez with the foul).

Looks like a good betting race. I expect Mr. Money will get some attention, even with the 92 Beyer.

Improbable a yes for Preakness; Smith rides..

Okay now we are talkin'.

Improbable/Owendale exacta :D

I love seeing improbable coming back.

Shug not going to Preakness with Code of Honor; Pointing for Dwyer..

This makes no sense.

Horse would be 3/1 to win a Triple Crown race and they’re going in a G3 instead?!?

Country House ruled out for Preakness: http://live.drf.com/nuggets/47990-br...ng-to-get-sick

BREAKING NEWS: Country House out of Preakness, per Mott, who said he's coughing, "acting like he's going to get sick"

Kentucky Derby winner Country House will not run in the Preakness Stakes, trainer Bill Mott said Tuesday, after Country House started to show signs of becoming ill at Churchill Downs, where he has remained following his Derby victory on Saturday.

"He developed a little bit of a cough this morning," Mott said by telephone. "He appetite is good. He doesn't have a fever. But he's coughing. We drew blood. He's acting like he's going to get sick. He's off the training list, and if he's off the training list he's off the Preakness list.

"It's probably a little viral thing," Mott said. "Hopefully it doesn't develop into anything serious. Usually when something like this happens a horse misses a couple weeks of training. He's not seriously sick right now. But he's showing indications that something is going on."

No Maximum Security, no Country House, and no Code of Honor. So not a single one of the 1-2-3 finishers from the Derby will run in the Preakness. That has to be the first time this has happened.

Going to get all the "new" fans with that news. I wish they'd quit running that annoying preakness commercial while im trying to watch my bruins play.

Well MS needs time off because Servis’s “program” requires 30-45 days between starts.

Hay and oats.

Can someone explain the time frame for me? Does the extra time allow a trainer to give PEDs to a horse that increase muscle, etc. but are out of the system by the time the horse races next?

If anything it's the opposite. The cheating trainers' horses can come back much quicker. Their horses can do things that normal horses can't do.

Wrong

Yeah cuz R. Dutrow absolutely sucked at running horses back quickly :rolleyes:

I've heard it's more of a big choke than a little cough...You know, the notion of being exposed and all....

We are talking about different kinds of programs.

You’re a big fan of 40% trainers now? Amazing what this DQ has done to people. :rolleyes:

Can you be exposed when you were 70-1 and ran maybe the 3rd or 4th best race when you got moved up?

It is an absurd thing to say. Where are you getting your information? Blood doping and all cheating make horses much stronger and able to do things that normal horses can't do. Just like Lance Armstrong could do things that would not be possible without blood doping. When you are much stronger and can get much more air, you don't get as tired and you recover much quicker. It is the same with pretty much all the things that these guys use. Whether it's blood doping or whether it's something like steroids or something that mimics steroids, it allows the horses to recover much quicker and to maintain their weight. In Southern California there was a trainer who would run his horses back in a week all the time when steroids were allowed. It was a known fact that this guy was giving huge doses of steroids.

Coming from you that’s a compliment.

I wonder if Shug McGaughey will have a rethink with Code of Honor.

At any rate, in 1985 the 1-2 finishers Spend A Buck (Jersey Derby) and the ill-fated Stephan's Odyssey (Peter Pan) opted out of the Preakness. Show horse Chief's Crown started and was tagged at the wire by Derby also-ran Tank's Prospect.

Hossy, how many sides of this are you going to take? First it's "WoW and LRT were completely compromised, thus were cost placings, thus the takedown AND placing of MS to 17th was warranted.

Now, the interference had nothing to do with CR's trip and he was the 3rd or 4th best?

C'mon Man.

It's one or the other.

You have guys like baffert,beyer etc etc etc well respected guys saying it was bullshit. It cost me north of 5k and it was and will be horrible decison. The worst being that **** statement the **** stewards prepared after waiting ****ing 23 minutes to make the WRONG decison if their trying to "grow" the game with younger fans wellyou couldn't of handled that any worse. Younger people myslef included don't have the patience to be sitting around waiting for three clowns to make a **** decison. And now their promoting the **** of this 80oclm on May 18th (i mean the preakness stakes) GTFO

How is it one or the other? I’ve been very consistent. I’ve maintained throughout that CH wasn’t impacted. But he finished 2nd. So he was moved up because MS fouled WoW and LRT and cost them their chance at 2nd-4th.

It’s pretty obvious MS ran a better race than CH. I thought ground loss considered so did Game Winner and maybe WoW.

You’ve watched enough races to know very often the “best” horse doesn’t always win.