Shakespeare
 

After his comeback win, I posted that at one time I thought he was the best turf horse in North America. That time has come again!

I take it he just won The Woodbine mile...:)

That was AWESOME!!!!! I too thought he was the best turf horse and truly felt he just hated the ground in the Breeders Cup, I really didn't think he was a miler but that performance was off the charts!

Was it a good race? I don't have HRTV so haven't seen it yet.
I saw he won, but sounds like the race was good.

Darn Directv, going to end up with both Directv and Dish to be able to watch The Fairgrounds.

I just saw the racereplay....
WOW...Awesome is not enough....:)
He's just a fabulous horse, I'm really glad he's back.

Can it really happen again? If Shakespeare wins the BC Mile, it would be back to back years that a horse previously trained by Bill Mott wins the BC Mile.

Also, I hope most of you were able to catch K. McLaughlin on ATR on Friday. He spoke very highly of Shakespeare and he nevers over-hypes any of his runners except for Invasor.

He's GOING to win the BCM, and he could probably win the BCT as well. A flat out monster.

Is he training straight to the race? Since they moved the Woodbine Mile to this week it's now 6 weeks out, so going to the KEE race is probably not in the plans.

i wouldnt give up on her just yet. i cant account for her 2nd to last start, but she was full of run last time with nowhere to run. she got turned almost sideways when she bounced off another horse and/or the rail and lost all hope.

Not if Crossing the Line is there. That one wins if he's there. If not, Silver Tree is going to take some beating here.

Forgetting the actual race for a second, every track should have that spread at the bottom of the action indicating where every horse is on the track throughout the race. I like that visual so much better than the vanilla four horse update we get here in the States.

Keeneland has it also. I like it.

It was pretty interesting. Watching that gave me a little more appreciation for how good Shakespeare was running at the end.

If just the Americans show up then I'd agree he could win either race. Going to be a whole different story though with the Euros.

I'm not familar with the Euro contingent, but Crossing the Line's Del Mar Mile was just as impressive as Shakespeare at Woodbine. He exploded in the last furlong just as Shakespeare did. Shakespeare beat a better field at Woodbine however. We should see Crossing the Line next in the Oak Tree Mile or the Shadwell at Kee. I can't wait.

Is that the same Crossing the Line that recently photoed Becrux at Del Mar? How, please tell us, did Becrux fare yesterday?

As for Silver Tree.......why not Sabre Baby?

Which Euros? I certainly hope there are some new and improved models over the last two years.

Crossing the Line is not nominated for the BC... and not going.

Silver Tree is an awfully nice horse. Liked him for a long time and cashed many a ticket on him. That said, Shakespeare would have to get a nightmare trip in the BC for ST to have a chance.

You may be right in the Mile, I have no clue who they have. In the Turf though I think Shakespeare could beat our best but doubt he can beat the best Europe will bring over.

I agree on Silver Tree, Shakespeare is a vastly superior horse. Silver Tree had a good summer, capped by the Fourstardave, which incidentally was an absolutely perfect trip win. I'm still certain he can't compete with the upper echelon in a race like the BC Mile.

NT

He beat Becrux by a length and blew by him at the end. . . with his style I'm not sure that the lengths he beat Becrux by indicate that Crossing the Line is only that much better than him. . . Shakespeare's probably the best miler in North America now but Crossing the Line isn't far behind. . . Unfortunately, Crossing the Line probably isn't going to the BC so it's all moot. . .

We all have a tendency to say " he can't beat the Euros " but sometimes the Euros aren't that special and often our milers are better than our distance horses ( there's a shock ). I'm not particularly up on the Euro milers, though Maduro was their best and he's now injured ( and wasn't pointing to the Mile anyway ), and if George Washington ends up being one of their better entrants I would certainly take my chances with Shakespeare.

He actually beat Becrux by three quarters of a length and while he's possibly a superior horse, and appears to have room to improve, he's done very little noteworthy in his career to deserve the accolades he seems to be getting.

I don't even have to know who is coming in the Turf to feel pretty confident that we won't crack the top three. Who the heck is going to get there? English Channel? The Tin Man? Grand Courtier? I think Shakespeare could beat all of them but don't feel confident he'd be able to stretch out four furlongs and beat the Euros. He certainly would be a deserving favorite in the Mile.

Sometimes in the BC Mile, it's tough to see which Euros are going to be tough. LAst Tycoon, Barethea, Dome Driver were all pretty big number winners. Antonio Pius was a close 2nd to Singletary. I remember that Super paying $110k. I didn't have it. Last year it was kind of silly that they ran George Washington in the Classic instead of the Mile. Who knows how he would have done. GW and Lingarri have their preps coming up. A 3yo filly - Darjina (sp?) just beat older males in France. Miesque, Ridgewood Pearl and Six Perfections all won the BCM as 3 yo fillies, I believe. To me, the BCM is a crapshoot. Maybe that's because I cannot recall ever getting the race right.

It's hard to believe that whichever Euro routers show up that the mediocrities we have going long will beat them. Look at Doctor Dino. He was hardly upper echelon over there. Somehow I would guess Dylan Thomas and Notnowcato could handle him. I have no idea whether Soldier of Fortune, Zambazi Sun, Lawman or the mighty Authorized are coming.

accolades? at least 3/4 of betting population probably would not even know who he is and what he has done. I bet if we walked around the last weekend of saratoga and asked people who crossing the line was we would get a collective blank stare.

U are better than that Andy. U know that u can't compare how many lengths one horse beats another with how another does against that same horse and use that as conclusive proof of which one is better. And to say why not Sabre Baby? Maybe because Sabre Baby has never even been in the money in a stakes race and has career earnings of just over $300k while Silver Tree has won four times, placed four times and showed twice in graded stakes, has won over a third of his career races, been in the money in 67% of his career races and has earned just under $1.5 million. On second thought, those two are a very good comparison. I bow to u again.

I actually completely disagree with you and think the comparison of Becrux is very legitimate. Becrux is a fairly consistent and proven horse. Crossing the Line beat him by less than a length and Shakespeare dusted him ( in a race Becrux won last year ). I place a great emphasis on level of competition when analyzing turf horses. God knows I don't use speed figures for turf races.

Obviously I know that Silver Tree is better than Sabre Baby ( and was only using him as an example because I mocked him earlier this summer at Siro's ). However, obviously you don't know how far from Shakespeare Silver Tree is. If you think a perfect trip win over Drum Major places him anywhere close to the upper echelon of turf horses then you are out of your mind. Silver Tree has proven conclusively over his career that while he's an admirable horse he is nothing special whatsoever.

as much as I am a fan of Crossing The Line, I would have to rate him behind Shakespeare at the moment. Shakespeare just seems to be freakishly good, like a turf version of Ghostzapper almost.

Maybe we haven't seen the best yet of Crossing The Line, which is why I said at the moment. He's done everything asked of him so far, so who knows.
But winning a top class turf mile is not an easy thing to do especially with such a deep field like in the WO mile. There were some good horses in that race who fired their best shots, Kip Deville and Remarkable News for example, and Shakespeare simply walked by them.
it would be nice if they were ever able to hook up against each other.

sheakespeare did not walk bt kip deville. He was under a drive from the 1/8 pole to the wire. He had a perfect trip along the rail and was very fortunate to have gotten through. He also was getting 7lbs from kip who had a trip that does not exactly fit his running style. at scale weights and kip getting an outside stalking trip there will be nothing between these two. The shorter stretch at monmouth will also benefit Kip. I am all over kip in the futures at this point.

good luck, you'll need it if you're trying to get Kip Deville to win the BC mile.
If the shorter stretch at Monmouth benefits him so much, why did he recently place third on that track in a grade 3 race?

I agree w/ mp3. Also, you can't lose the fact that Remarkable News was the 2nd favorite in the race yesterday. A nice horse, sure but he's certainly not scaring anyone.

That said, Shakes is very nice.

Ok then how about this. Shakespeare was in a full drive to beat Kip Deville by a length. Back in March, Kip Deville beat what I thought was a tougher field than the Woodbine field when he won the Kilroe at Santa Anita (Silent Name, Milk it Mick, After Market, Three Valleys) by a neck. The fourth place finisher in that race was Porto Santo. That day, Porto Santo was beaten by 1 1/4 lengths by Kip Deville. When Crossing the Line won the race at Del Mar, he beat Porto Santo by 2 1/4 lengths. So since Kip is 1 1/4 lengths better than Porto Santo and CTL is 2 1/4 lengths better, according to your logic, that makes CTL a length better than Kip.....the same distance that Shakespear beat him by. So then CTL and Shakespeare are equal.......if u are going to judge them by how much they beat comparative horses by.

Be careful with that Porto Santo analogy. He had absolutely no place to run in the Del Mar Mile and the decision with CTL would have probably been much, much closer had Nakatani not been completely stymied for over a furlong.

Also, just my opinion, the way you broke down your analysis is nice, but comparing finishing positions in races that were five months apart is a very dangerous idea. I think you missed Andy's point, which was that level of competition has to be taken into consideration, but I missed where he said that margin of victory is the deciding factor.

NT