Pyro
 

Awfully unimpressive in victory over a mediocre field.

Proud Spell ran 2/5ths faster at the same distance- though she did have the situation of a lifetime trip.

Pyro got shuffled a bit but didn't appear to have a big excuse otherwise.

I was thinking that same thing. Pyro is a good horse. I reluctantly have to admit that. But the time comparison is interesting. Last time, it was said that the girls ran faster because of the pace. This time, the half in the Derby was faster than the pace in the Oaks. The final time was .43 slower than the girls. On the bright side, it was nearly a full second last time so maybe the boys are closing the gap.:D

Proud Spell had the advantage of being in a 2 horse match race with a speedster. Of course the fractions will be faster.

Give Bravo a real rider n' He and PYRO hit the wire together.What a waste of a mount.Somebody good gunna want this mount,and I hope they get it.

He'll do well vs. War Pass when they meet again.....2nd best, once again!

let's just not have the triple crown races this year.

jeez

Not the performance I was expecting...

This crop just continues to look weaker and weaker.

I guess I was more impressed with him than all of you guys seem to be, although the crop as a whole continues to look poor. The time was obviously not great compared to what Proud Spell did in the previous race, but Pyro ran into some trouble in the second half of the race and overcame it to win easily.
As far as I am concerned he was far more impressive than Proud Spell throughout the last 2.5 furlongs of the race, despite not getting ideal fractions to run into.....again.
He clearly isn't great at this point, but he seems pretty good to me.

Pyro sprints away from a MCL in the last 16th while every other horse is gasping. Combine that with the time... eeek.

He was more impressive than her overall - even though he ran a few lengths slower.

Proud Spell will never get a better situation than she got today. With a real fast pace to set Pyro up - he could certainly run a lot better than his softish win today.

His running style will make it tough in a field of 20.........

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the quarter and half of the Derby were FASTER than the Oaks.

And let's not forget the third place horse, trying dirt for the first time.

I think it's fashionable to say that Pyro has improved since the fall. I'm not so sure. I think he was better than these horses in the fall and he's still better than them. I feel like it's impossible to tell how much he's improved. I don't think anything more can be taken from this race than can be taken from War Pass' race or from Big Brown's race. Each situation has been one good horse against vastly inferior horses and the good horse doing what he's supposed to do. Majestic Warrior, Tale of Ekati are "name" horses so it seemed like this was a deep field today but under the conditions they were put under, they had no shot at all to give their best and even their best might not have suited the conditions of today being that neither of them has proven they can win past 7f or around two-turns.

The horses who raced 19th and 20th early on in last years Derby - finished 1st and 4th.

4th place finisher Imawildandcrazyguy just ran 3rd in a small stake at Tampa today.

All things being equal, I'd prefer a closing style in the Derby.

closers win almost half of the KY derbies, stalkers take about 1/2 the rest. So all things being equal you'd take a closer. All things being equal. It seems that the various running styles are about equallydistributed but that's just a rough count based on last couple runnings of the derby.

OTOH, some running styles like stalkers have to turn into closers in the derby because of all the traffic. Fu Peg or Charismatic might be examples of this.

All in all one should not dismiss a horse for the derby on the basis of his being a closer. Being a closer is a plus.

I had this same conversation with a friend of mine today. The chug-up finishers in the Derby are often great to wheel underneath at good prices:

Bluegrass Cat 30-1, Jazil 24-1, Steppenwolfer 16-1 in '06, Limehouse 41-1 in '04 etc.

Excellent point and another step in the road to convincing people that they needn't be overly concerned with closers in the Derby as only around three of the last 17 were won by horses on the pace.

NT

I thought that most of the Derby winners were within 3 lengths of the lead at the first turn ?
Street Sense is an obvious exception to that.

maybe final turn

What's one turn between friends?

One turn leads to another

And time wounds all heels.

This thread too has done enough and needs to be farmed out like Daahar

As long as we still have that insane one about Gomez apparently burying Indian Blessing today.

Can you imagine if jockey's had 10% to do with the results that people seem to think they do?

Then they would actually deserve what they want

Yes - tactics are meaningless in match races.

The last part is funny - you'd have me by a 400/1 margin in rides complained about

Thank God for your family that Mom understands horse racing.

Go back and watch all of Indian Blessing's races again.

Can we stay on topic please?

does byk use dapper dan or flopp?

Sure there are questions about Pyro but he was much the best today.

You can without me.

I DVR'd Super Troopers last week and haven't watched it yet. Now seems like the right time.

OMG!!! I just read the Grasshopper thread.

I will never forgive you for using my very sane and rational thread as your example over that nonsense.

You are dead to me.

It's hard to keep the insanity straight this evening.

i laughed alot..

without a doubt

I'm drinking the pyro haterade juice,it's not the horse but the trainer i root against. Also he seems like a horse that puts himself in jackpots all the time that wont work on the first sat in may.predicton 6th in the derby comment:checked around both turns

All In!!!

Not so fast there., First call in a route is at the 1/2, 2nd call is at 3/4.

Oaks 48.17/112.8
Derby 48.07/113.86

Proud Spell or Indian Blessing did not have to face the trip that Pyro did. He was boxed in and for a second it looked like he had no way out. He split horses and then gained his best stride when open and started to really open up. I guess it is fashionable to trash pyro but he comes from off the pace so his numbers get tempered by the pace he is up against. I do however agree that style-wise he could run into real difficulty the first Sat in May and will need a little racing luck to get the proper trip

Well firstly, it's "Fop".. Not 'flopp'... And secondly, to quote Ulysses Everett McGill:

"I don't want Fop.. I'm a Dapper Dan man."



"Well ain't this place a geographic oddity.. 2 weeks from everywhere!"