Which top 4 is a bigger laughingstock?
 

Last years BC Juv Fillies:
Stardom Bound
Dream Empress
Sky Diva
Dave's Regenge

OR

Last years BC Juv:
Midshipman
Square Eddie
Street Hero
Terrain


Stardom Bound is the only one of those 8 who has since won ... but she got a monumental positive trainer change going from Paasch to Frankel/Dutrow. And she also ran very slow everytime.

Dream Empress has been utterly humiliated in her 3 races since .. her best Beyer only a 74 in those 3 races as she has staggered home badly beaten.

Sky Diva was 3rd beaten 9.5 lengths at 1/5 odds next time out and hasn't run since.

Dave's Revenge was 4th beaten just 3 lengths while making only her 2nd lifetime start in the Breeders Cup. A race so promising that her connections have refused to run her for the $25,000 N2L claiming tag she belongs in. She's been off the board in 7 straight races since the Breeders Cup - never once running a Beyer higher than 71. She's been in the low 60's lately.

OK, so you have a horse who won a championship for the brutal Paasch - and became slow as hell for Frankel/Dutrow. And the other three horses are a combined 0-for-11 with a top Beyer of 74 since the Breeders Cup.

And as for the Juvie...

Midshipman is toast.

Square Eddie was beaten at 3/5 in San Raffy - and 7/5 in the Lexington - he's now toast.

Street Hero is toast.

Terrain returned to run 5th by 12 lengths at Delta Downs next out - he never threatened in 5 in a row since the Breeders Cup and now he's dead.

OK, so, you have toast, toast, toast, and a dead horse.


Before anyone gets too down on the Juvenile though - the sensational Munnings did manage to beat a whopping two horses in the race! - one of them was an eventual Kentucky Derby winner who finished dead last

Ah well, at least they can never take the great memories of those two stupid Euro horses beating Tiag-Slow in the Classic from us.

Oh god, hands down the Fillies.

"And she also ran very slow everytime"

Why do you keep talking about figures of synthetic horses like it means something?

Paasch ain't bad

Dream Empress wraps that one up for the fillies.

Who said anything about figures?

I don't care if she got a 125 Beyer and a negative -7 on the sheets while she was getting drowned by Hooh Why in the Ashland... she was running slow.

He's basically a 12% guy who gets some pretty darn nice stock from the sales...albeit not in high volume.

He's also a very likely future trainer of a DT Stables horse ... as he's portly and stuff.

Hooh Why was sitting on a monster trip after her effort in the SA Oaks, where she held very well against the flow. Outside of Gozzip Girl and SB, HW 'wiped out' the field in the Ashland. It's evident that the setup that day favored speed -- though HY did run well in WO subsequently. You've seen the replay, I'm sure you noted that GG, who's not bad at all, had dead aim at HY in the stretch and is supposed to blow by. Instead, she hung like a rat -- which she's not. So, what's your point about SB in the Ashland?:rolleyes:

"SLOW" is from the old paradigm.

POLY requires a conceptual shift and a new vocabulary.

P.S. AD HOC methodology changes do not quite equal a conceptual shift.

Oh, and those not playing POLY on a regular basis really shouldn't be commenting on it, on a regular basis.

So I am to believe you did not look at any figures from SB's two grade 1 wins in making the statement, come on.

You just seem to rely heavily on figures (Beyers I assume) for synthetic horses when in reality they are as valuable as turf figures.

Your post is correct, these horses have bombed entirely other then SB's who won a couple grade 1's and placed in another.

Let me take a stab at your post before I actually read it....

What you really need to do is get your ass over to the HOL thread on Friday nights and show us what you have. Many would benefit from your take on POLY racing.:rolleyes:

Ah, no ... no I don't.

And I just think this bit here with you acting like I'm lost on handicapping a synthetic track is really just a clever trick on your part to get me to remind everyone how my public selections have done at PID on it's synthetic the last two years.

Sorry, I wasn't born yesterday. I won't do it. I'm not going to toot my own horn and spout off on my dazzling sustained profitability like some kind of self promoting back patter would do. Won't happen.

I don't play Hollywood Park.

I'd rather play the Pleasenton fair .... opening day is tomorrow by the way!

My top 4 would be:

Morty
PG1985
TenMostWanted1
JCS######

STATISTICS BE DAMNED (although if i looked it up, and he happened to have a nice ROI, I would probably sing a different tune).

Paasch has his moments. He seems like a real good horseman and from a distance, doesn't seem to be missing out on the "stuff" other guys are doing.

Going to Frankel was actually a step down. Before everyone is up in arms, the key here is context and the fact that SB had a good thing going with Paasch. Similar to calling Rachel's a positive trainer change, except Paasch is more potent than Werner from my limited knowledge of Werner.
Going to Dutrow always brings the chance of improving, so no debate there.

Not trying to nitpick or be contrarian like some when they see a DrugS post lately. Just happen to think highly of Paasch.

it should be noted that this Keeneland meet was speed BIASED(favoring forward position), especially compared to the typical way Keeneland has played since going poly.

the track was pretty quirky. I only mention this to avoid the misconception that Synthetic is bias-free(as insinuated heare and other threads), not to claim Stardom Bound had any sort of excuse, as i waited what seemed like ages for the ashland once the ill advised decision to run SB on poly was announced.

:tro: :tro:

Wiggins. Not Werner.

A Trainer upgrade of going from worser to worse and the horse still managing to win a grade 1 would be who?

Clue - Female Trainer to Old Fart.

Laura De Soreux to Lukas?

Yep, hard to believe Azeri had the career she had under those 2 and this is when Lukas was downright awful also.

That was my guess except the worse part threw me off.

Yeah it might be the contrarian view but I actually thought Lukas improved her abit if we are to use beyers as the definitive gauge, but we just had that discussion...

of course her Beyers went up once she started racing on the east coast :rolleyes:

Lukas gave Azeri a chance to show everyone, and I was a non-believer before he got her, just how good she really was.

Horses often show more in defeat than they do in victory. Lukas gave her a chance to lose. Compare it to testing in college, where the tests are designed so that nobody can get a perfect score, and the scores are graded on a curve. You learn little about a student's true capabilities when they get a perfect score. One person's 100 is not the same as another's per se.

If you put Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra together on the racetrack, especially in a situation that is reasonably fair for both, you will learn much more about them than we did this past Saturday. In all likelihood, both will emerge with their reputations furthered.

Good post, I hate when the best horses avoid each other, I mean shouldnt they have a championship day at the end of the year or something, the sport should think about doing that, fans would be happy as well.

of course Azeri proved she was good, when she got to NYRA of course :D

She certainly proved it more there than she did at Churchill.

I have no clue why a trainer would think a front running router with high cruising speed would be good at sprinting, certainly that goes against my theory on cutbacks.

She certainly ran her best races around two turns and given a chance she beat the mighty Sightseek and ran an awesome race in the Personal Ensign.

She got thrashed in her next start too.

NT

I remember, it was the Met Mile, one turn sprint as well. She took some stupid money though.

And the one after that too...she finished last of 4 in the Ogden Phipps.

NT

Sightseek could run a little...

Come on man ... that's bologna.

All Lukas did was put her in a couple of very silly spots... silly spots in which she did not run well. That and he was based in the East and LDS in the West.

She had that great 1:08 and change debut at 17/1 odds - and than she ran 15 straight triple digit Beyers before being removed from LDS.

I know she beat almost nothing ... but she came to the Apple Blossom twice for LDS and Arlington for the BC Distaff - and gave anything in the east a chance to meet her in between.

She gave those double digit weight swings away to a few ok horses and all as well.

It was painfully obvious how good Azeri was before Lukas got her ... and she was just about the same horse for him minus her bad effort in the Phipps.

My problem with Azeri is that she was overrated to the point of sheer annoyance by TVG when she raced in the West for De Soreux.

When Lukas put her in silly spots like the Met and Breeders Cup Classic ... you didn't so much notice that she had the speed of Ruffian, the class of Lady's Secret, and the heart of Personal Ensign ... did you?

I thought she ran well in the BCC - it was a more interesting spot than putting her in the Distaff.

Yeah - it was very shrwed placement.

She was 5th, got beat about 10 lengths at 15/1 odds, with a 109 Beyer.

That year's Distaff was won by Ashado with a 102.

It all depends on what you want to see - a horse put into challenging spots or put in spots where they could win with ridiculous ease.

Obviously I love Sightseek, but she didn't exactly have the most interesting campaign.

And nobody would have cared about her winning the Distaff for a second time. Whether she raced there or not didn't change the fact that we already knew she was the best older female in the country. The greats become the greats because they are always taking on new challenges, not handling the same ones over and over.

I only wish that Azeri could have been tried in some of those spots in 2003 instead of having to wait another year. As good as she was in 2004, I thought she was better in 2003.

If you're trying to argue that a 5th place finish in the Classic did more for Azeri's legacy than winning a 2nd Distaff would have, I couldn't possibly disagree more. She finished 5th, it's not like she contended, even if it was one of the toughest Classic fields ever. I agree with you in general when it comes to trying bold things with exceptionally talented female horses, but this was not a case where Azeri had nothing left to prove. A 2nd Distaff would have been another feather in her cap, or at least more of one than a 5th in the Classic.

I also wasn't certain that she was the best female in the country at that time. She traded decisions with Sightseek (who was a Belmont horse for course) but neither had proven they were decidedly better than the other.

She was more than a Belmont horse, watch her Rampart, Go For Wand the year earlier and Humana Distaff!