John V. & Flower Alley
 

I am not going to say that Flower Alley deserved to win this race, but the ride given to him by John V. was atrocious. FOUR WIDE on the turn. Come on! This guy is supposed to be one of the best? LAUGHABLE! He grew his reputation straight off of Todd Pletcher's ass. One of the worst rides I have ever seen in a top race.

Is it any coincidence that the worst race that Afleet Alex ever ran was with this joker on his back?

the ride had zero to do with todays finish. JV also had the whip out on the turn, what does that tell you?

nobody is better than JV. flower alley just is not good enough to sit around and get fat and expect to come back and be handed wins. that horse was fat this spring.

the ride did NOT cost the horse the win--if you have ever sat on a horse you would know that a rider responds to whats underneath him--JV clearly was scrubbing on this horse early to try to keep him in it.

It tells me that he used the horse up early trying to keep pace with Siphon City. The guy has no sense of pace. Pletcher/Velasquez dominate the 2 year old division every year because it's always a dead sprint from the start. But where, please tell me, where are their TRIPLE CROWN TROPHIES??????

Big wager today on Flower Alley I'm guessing?

Ummm ... Teddy ... did you notice ... that the winner was three wide?

So ... Flower Alley travelled 1/2 length further than Invasor ... and he lost by ... how much?

You'd better spend just a wee bit more time learning how to watch thoroughbred races ... because you're giving the impression that you don't know what the blazes you're talking about.

sure sounds a lot like sour grapes

you think? JV is the best.

OK ... on this one you're correct.

Pletcher is the King Of The MSW Sprints ... but is out of sight when classic-distance dirt races for colts are run.

Good observation.

Pletcher said before the race FA was not 100%

Then why in the hell would he have run him? Not 100% as in not 100% sound or not 100% ready?

he would need to be 150% to beat invasor.

as in not 100% sure i can beat invasor. his home track and he was beaten by the best horse in training. Invasor is actually a 10F horse too.

Yup ...

... it's always nice to be aware ... that the horse you've entered in a nationally televised G1 race ... is going to finish seventh.

That way ... you're not too disappointed afterward.

Sheeeeeeesh !!!

Horse was short today, matter of fact I absolutely LOVE how he ran today because it will help the odds, at least a little bit for the JCGC or whatever the thing is.

Did he actually use those words? And by less than 100% did he mean around 80%?

And if Invasor is in the JCGC? How much are you willing to bet that FA turns the tables?

i guess you like to throw money away. that horse was short in a 9f race on his home track but you like him going more distance on another track if invasor or bernardini is in there?

if pletcher has horses that are running short maybe he is not the great trainer people say he is. i think he was ready but not in the league with a horse that now has three grade 1 wins in a row against older horses. flower alley still does not have a grade 1 win against older horses.

I would bet that FA will avoid invasor for awhile...until breeder's cup anyway

Flower Alley was not in shape according to Pletcher

and it looked it. he'll improve.

Um, newflash to someone that still doesn't have a clue, he is considered an OLDER horse, if anything Invasor is still a 3 year old I think (Southern Hemisphere are a year older, but not really)

not 100% as in fit.....he is healthy....just wasnt 100% fit for that race.....

if a trainer is going to use a race to train a horse (get him fit) don't you think the horse should run more than once every couple of months?

if the horse is ok then his training seems to have slipped..

Yap. Needs to run a few more races if he's training him in races. I thought Sun King ran a huge race with the first half in only 47and change. That was a really big finish.

newsflash? Someone who doesn't have a clue? do you have any idea what you are talking about? it sounds like you know nothing about horse racing.

Invasor is the Uruguayan Triple Crown Winner and Horse of the Year. He is not a 3 year old.

Thats funny the horse wasn't 100% but yet he was 3-2


I wonder the total amount bet to WPS was???:D :D

saying he wasn't 100% for the whitney is a slap at pletcher. so he runs horses in grade 1's that are not fit?

Does it concern Invasor fans that he needed every bit of the stretch to beat a horse who clearly isn't a two turn horse? Sun King is a very nice horse, but the only race he's won in the last half year or so was a sprint; he's never run well against even less than top class competition around two turns.

I also don't get Pletcher; if I owned Flower Alley, I'd be pretty steamed that he ran a horse who was less than 100% in the Whitney. This is a very prestigious race - what, was Todd using it as a prep for something else? Sheesh - at best, FA was going to only have 4 or 5 races this year. Why throw away one of them right off the bat? Unless he honestly thought FA at less than 100% was good enough to beat Invasor.....isn't that kind of arrogant?

not at all. sun king nearly beat a great horse at belmont in a mile race. when he is cranked up he is one of the best older horses. look at his keeneland and belmont race.

invasor wants more ground anyway.

flower alley was not less than 100%. pletcher does not run short horses in a 9f grade 1. people are making excuse for a horse that is not as good as invasor.

no, pletcher admitted he didn't have FA 100% for this race...it looks like pletcher blew the training for this race.

Hmm, well I think Sun King is not quite top-class (meaning that he'll generally run good races but will not beat the best horses), but that's not meant as a knock. I would love to own him - it drove me up a wall when people put Aptitude down as a nag (and that's one of the nicer things they said about him). If he was a nag, I wouldn't mind having a barnful of them. I also wasn't implying, in case it wasn't clear, that Invasor is anything less than a heck of a horse.

We could have some seriously good fall racing at Belmont-whatwith Bernardini, Invasor and Flower Alley presumably all pointing for the Jockey Club Gold Cup

Technicalities like this are why universal birthdates are used for official reckoning, but it doesn't change the fact that Invasor probably is 3, just barely.

Invasor was born in August of 2002. Of course he's officially considered a 4YO for racing purposes, but there's a decent chance that he has not passed his actual 4th birthday yet.

[quote=Betsy]Does it concern Invasor fans that he needed every bit of the stretch to beat a horse who clearly isn't a two turn horse? Sun King is a very nice horse, but the only race he's won in the last half year or so was a sprint; he's never run well against even less than top class competition around two turns.QUOTE]

on sun king:


Winnings: 20 Starts: 6 - 4 - 4, $1,942,978

2004: 3rd BC Juvenile(G1), Champagne S.(G1)
2005: 1st Pennsylvania Derby (G2), Tampa Bay Derby (G3), Leonard Richards S.(G3); 2nd Haskell Invitational (G1); 3rd Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1)
2006: 1st Commonwealth BCS.(G2); 2nd Whitney H.(G1), Metropolitan Mile (G1), Albert the Great S.

:eek: When I go to bed tonight, I am going to close my eyes REAL hard and pray for: 1. Israel and Lebanon (Iran, Syria) to stop bombing each other; 2. That we can gracefully exit Iraq; 3. people who slam others opinions to at least research their facts.

Ok,

No I didn't have money on Flower Alley. The OTB is 24 miles away from my house, it is over 100 degrees here, and I simply didn't have time to make the journey to bet on an even money horse.

According to EQUIBASE Flower Alley was 4 wide the entire freaking race. Nothing stated about INVASOR going wide, ever. He did stumble at the start, before being put in good position. Freaking WEST VIRGINIA, Premium Tap, We Can Seek, and Wandering Boy beat FA. FA finished in 7th place, beaten by a ton of unimpressive horse flesh, and was beaten by INVASOR and SUN KING by 9 lengths. LMAO, FA lost "1/2 length"? Brooklyn, I am either going to guess that you were trying to be sarcastic, or god, please let me BANK YOUR BETS. PLEASE! Because something tells me that you don't have a clue. :eek:

Good grief ...

... Flower Alley is beginning to sound like Lost In The Fog!

Let's see ... did he "not fire" ... did he "not run his race" ... was he "studdish" ... did he "not like the track" ... did he "get a bad ride" ... and what else were they saying about Lost In The Fog ... that can also be applied to Flower Alley?

Modest suggestion ...

... take your nose out of the Equibase chart book ... and watch the actual race.

Invasor was three wide ... and Flower Alley was four wide ... around the turn ... which gave Invasor a 1/2 length advantage over Flower Alley ... and ...

... not that it should matter ... Sun King was six wide.

Okay listen, since everyone else has already correctly demonstrated that your analysis of the Whitney borders on the insane, I'll address this question. The answer is......yes it was a coincidence!!! I believe the race you are reffering to was the Rebel and it had nothing to do with JV being his rider. After the race it was revealed that AA wasn't right for the race. I can't remember exactly what it was (I'm sure someone here will) but the horse was either sick or hurt. It had NOTHING to do with the jock.