Just give Bernardini HOY
 

Nobody is beating that horse anywhere. Not even the older horses.

Wow he looked sooooo good, like watching M Ali in his prime.

Maybe so, but he has to see older horse before the year is out.

bernardini is still on the outside looking in for top three year old at this point. even a travers win might not get him that vote, certainly not hoy. he'd have to win the bcc to get them both. lava man and flower alley might have something to say about that.

More proclamations.

He looked good.

It is one thing to beat a reasy for a rest Sunriver and an inexperienced Ministers Bid.

It is quite another thing to beat seasoned older horses,

We'll see.

Well said ,Almost the same thing I mentioned Barbaro Who? thread.

How was his time? I am not saying he won't get HOY, but let's not hand it out until after the BCC.

If you can't see that this one is special then you are missing something. If anything he in underrated.

You don't need to know the time. It was that impressive.

I haven't watched the race yet. Preakness was very nice. Just not a believer in handing out HOY awards until after the BCC, and I am certainly not going to put Bernardini at the top of my list until I see the race from today. My nephew and mom are playing video games on the only tv in my mom's house.

Trust me, this might be the best horse in decades. When a jockey says "After the race, he was so calm and he wasn't blowing" and when you see how easily he destroyed these horses, it isn't one of those deceiving efforts. They got what you expect and more from a AP Indy out of a mare that placed 10x in grade 1's and grade 2's.

after seeing the question, and this answer, i checked out todays charts. one other race, the third, was run at the same distance(he'sanoldsalt won, corinthian was third). and they ran about the same time, 1:50:26. bernardini was 1:50:50. now i do think that our future HOY should have been able to beat saltys time. but i could be wrong.

dont all winning jocks talk about how their horse wasn't even blowing?

Well it would be hard to think he was blowing considering he looked like he was out for a stroll in the park.

he sure did....he shouldn't be tired tho, what was that, his third start this year? it's a shame that some of these horses have their races spaced so far apart. and now he'll finally get a taste of 10f in a few weeks, altho with his pedigree i doubt it'll be a problem.

He was well in hand..and on cruise.. But, your point is well taken. A really nice horse, but this was a pretty weak field, so let's just wait and see.

Ez

i still don't think the field was weak. god knows we've seen weaker. now some are lightly raced, with some only having two races under their belts before today....but bernardini is lightly raced as well. he was certainly head and shoulders over these guys today.
sunriver has now struggled twice over an off track, i doubt they run him over such in the future.

Time meant nothing in that race. It was literally a workout for him. There was zero effort made by him.

lol....

sure. of course had his time been a bit faster than hesanoldsalt rather than a bit slower, you'd have been posting that for all to see.

How can time mean anything when you win by 9 in a jog. There was no effort made by the horse. If he didn't already have a huge number under his belt I could see arguing it, but an AP Indy is only going to get better as the year goes on. They all do.

It was a very nice race and impressive. Not ready to give him HOY yet, maybe if he does the name in the Travers...

It was a real good race. No question. The horses he beat weren't much, but he beat them so easily that I was impressed. But just give him HOY? I don't think so. The best horse he has beaten so far was a tired Sweetnorthernsaint. Buffy is right. If he strolls through the Travers like this, then I say let the HOY talk BEGIN. Before then....I say its premature.
My $ is still on Flower Alley.

Are there some mystery 3yr olds out there. Bluegrass Cat and Strong Contender are the only other decent three year olds that might show up and they are no better than Sunriver.

So is your point that Salt is better than Bernardini? The Jim Dandy was run on a sloppy track and the allowance was run on a good track, not to mention that Bernardini was never once asked for anything.

It's amazing that this horse went off at 3/5 with all the skeptics out there. Nothing this horse does is good enough. Every one of his wins has to have qualifiers attached to it - he beat tired horses, he loved the slop, he beat nothing. Why is it only Bernardini's races that are looked at under a microscope?

I'm sorry that there are those who simply can not concede that this is a very good horse without adding "but" to it.

no betsy, i'm not saying that. what i wrote was that his time was comparable to an allowance race--that a horse supposedly on the cusp of hoy probably should have had a better time, not slower...

i said i don't know how many times now that i thought this horse ran a great race today. however, my point was that he isn't yet HOY worthy. i haven't attached any qualifiers to his race, i haven't said the comp was weak as others have, i haven't said one bad thing about the horse. if you want to read something that isn't between the lines, help yourself.

He looked awesome today and unfortunately the competiton in the Travers wont be much better than today, with the exception of Strong Contender. This horse is the goods, but lets not give him HOY off of this paid public workout. The other horses were an absolute utter mess today.

it was a dog fight for 2nd with HK just getting nipped.

I mean honestly...I could beat Sunriver in the slop, and I am a HUGE Sunriver fan.

I'd bet the hell out of sunriver :)

Well first of all I think Bluegrass Cat is better than Sunriver. But in general you are correct in saying that there are no "mystery 3yo out there" and yes I fully expect Bern to win the Travers. All I am saying is that if he wins the Travers as impressively against Bluegrass Cat (or whoever emerges from the Haskell as a decent colt) I think HOY speculation would begin to be appropriate.
Listen there is nothing wrong with making predictions. If you think he is unbeatable, fine. I just don't think it is time yet to hand him HOY yet. The horse has won 2 real races in his life and they were against suspect competition. I will be the first to say that those two races were visually impressive, but let's remember Flower Alley.
He too won the Jim Dandy impressively (over 5 lengths) and went on to win the Travers by 2.5. He then finished a game 2nd to last year's HOY in the BCC, and won his only start this year. Do you really think it is IMPOSSIBLE that Flower Alley will beat Bernardini if and when those 2 square off? By saying "hand him horse of the year" you are saying that horses like Lava Man and Flower Alley have no shot at beating him. I'm just not ready to say that.