Baffert horses don't need races, he never trains like that, guy is not exactly Whittingham (who prepped Golden Pheasant for the Arl Million in a Grade 1 race at Del Mar for example).

With his vascillating all spring about where she was going to go, it was obvious that she was not completely right. She was working well but he probably just needed a tightener for her, that's why he never said anything about her running at Hollywood.

I do know that Baffert's win percentage on dirt is awfully good. So's Indian Blessing's.

NT

Rough Weekend for Stars
By Steve Crist

The four recent Eclipse Award finalists who raced this weekend all lost as heavy favorites, with three of them finishing 4th or worse.

Music Note: Last year's Mother Goose, CCA Oaks and Gazelle winner, and third to Proud Spell and Eight Belles in the voting for the 3-year-old filly championship, ran fifth in the G1 Ogden Phipps at Belmont Saturday as part of a three-ply entry favored at 7-to-20. Music Note, held out of the Shuvee last month after training poorly, made a brief surge into contention entering the stretch turn but had nothing in the tank after that and was beaten 10 3/4 lengths.

Einstein: A finalist for both the Older Male and Turf Male titles last year, Einstein was bidding for a third straight Grade 1 victory in Saturday's Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs, and also trying to become just the second horse (joining Lava Man) to win Grade 1's on dirt, grass and synth. Einstein ran third, beaten just a length and a nose, after a titanically bad trip that prompted this unusually long and dramatic official chart footnote: "Einstein bobbled at the start to get away a bit slow, checked off heels near the seven-eighths marker, was bottled up between horses down the backstretch and through the second turn, shifted out a bit and found a seam entering the stretch, was bumped and stuffed behind rivals with three-sixteenths to run, got through towards the inside late but was left with too much to do."

Kip DeVille: The 2007 Breeders' Cup Mile winner, and runner-up in that race last year, led to the top of the stretch but then faded badly and ran fourth of five as the 0.75-1 favorite in the G3 Poker at Belmont Sunday. The Belmont turf was soft -- the winning time was 1:36.50, as opposed to Kip DeVille's 1:32.94 winning last year's Poker -- but he's won on soft turf before, including the 2007 Breeders' Cup Mile, which was run in a boggy 1:39.78.

Indian Blessing: The champion female sprinter of 2008 and champion 2-year-old filly of 2007 was 1-2 in the Desert Stormer at Hollywood Park Sunday. She stalked Coco Belle early but was laboring by upper stretch and faded to finish fourth, beaten 5 1/2 lengths. Although Indian Blessing has run decently on synthetic tracks before, she clearly is a much better filly on real dirt, and trainer Bob Baffert said she's headed back to that surface and New York.

Indian Blessing and Kip DeVille were making their first starts since racing on the Dubai World Cup card March 28, supplying further ammunition to those who believe American horses often fare poorly when returning from that taxing trip.

You have to love that Crist is a DT member..Where else could he have gotten the idea to write such a story..lol

If he was a DT member the title would have read 'Rough weekend for historically low rated stars' and he'd steal my line about Camp Fat.

what ever happened to Evening Attire?

Retired toward the end of last year due to injury.

thanks. i really like that horse.

bump

A thread that had it all! Going into the Hatton Room..

The side-judge has thrown a flag.

Referee Ed Hochuli has the call.






Personal Foul, Bumping a 3-year-old thread because Miguel Cabrera is about to win a triple crown.

Glad I saw the date - I was about to launch a volley... ;)

Any thread with classic Sumitas quotes is always available for a bump simply for providing levity. Not to mention Freddy was at his peak here.

I agree with Doug, you are being flagged for red boarding. A new inventive way to red board but red boarding just the same. There were some classic posts in here though.

I'll take the 10 yards but after reading through I had to bring it back to life

Sumitas, johnny pinwheel, split rock, CSC. Do we have these kind of legends on DT today? The good ole days . . . .

It's 15 yards.

Good call on Cabrera and good thread, though.

tvg is strong today..classic races and legends ..

There is so much good stuff in this thread that I'd either forgotten or missed entirely the first time around:

That was an analogy for the ages.


A shoutout to Al Kaline, my all time favorite ballplayer?! How did I miss that?!


I don't think the problem can be stated more concisely or more accurately than that.


And then the reason the thread deserved the bump:
Can we agree now that Cabrera is the better hitter?!


--Dunbar

Who would have thought when Coach made that comment that just three years later a horse would be going to the Breeder's Cup off of an allowance prep in February at Gulfstream?