Can we all agree...
 

...that in spite of Frost Giant's assention into the ranks of Grade I winners and the resulting collapse of horse racing, Perfect Drift still has a chance to save the day, and the sport?

Lol. I'm hoping for a win by Perfect Drift but not to save the sport. I'm hoping it further illustrates how bad today's horses are.

If Perfect Drift wins.. he won't only save the sport, he'll vault it right past championship knitting..

Im keeping my fingers crossed...

Well can we at least agree that a win by Spice Route will signal the end of the sport? I mean, can you give me that much?

I'm not sure that the 1-2 finishers of the Suburban didn't accomplish this already.

I gotta tell ya', I don't know which is more depressing: the winner, or the field.

Well, I didn't think anything could be worse than the Suburban. I'm not sure after watching the Gold Cup.

I'd never have believed it had anyone told me five years ago that the day would come where they would run 10f grade one's in NY and CA on the same day for older horses and I wouldn't have heard of either winner going into the race.

thank you for my new signature...truest thing i've read in ages...very sad...

KG,

No insult intended here, but you can't be paying any attention to NY/CA circuit news to not have 'heard' of Mast Track and Frost Giant going into this weekend. Sorry.

Frost Giant, a multiple Group III winner trained by AO'B in Europe, was the subject of a lot of discussion since coming stateside. He was especially well-discussed here this week having been entered on the BEL carryover card the other day.

And Mast Track, in addition to being Frankel owned/trained and having just tried the Shoemaker last, was the subject of Brad Free's HOL GC advance Wednesday.

Further.. say what you will about Dutrow, but he kept trying with Frost Giant until he figured out what to do with him...

http://www.derbytrail.com/forums/sho...816#post392816

From Dave Grenig's BEL notes last week:

"He's a hard horse to figure out; I still ain't got him figured out yet," Dutrow said. "He's going good now though. I don't have a problem trying what we're going to try."

Dutrow said if Frost Giant runs big Wednesday, he'll leave him at Belmont with Bobby Frankel and walk him into the Suburban.

"I'll put him on the lead in the Suburban," Dutrow said. "I'll put Rudy [Rodriguez] on him and let him ride him right out of there, that's what the horse wants. He doesn't want you to take a hold of him."

And bred i believe

Hot damn! AND bred to boot... How about that Bobby?!

But he wasn't on the lead (Naughty New Yorker pulled Prado there), and they did take a hold of Frost Giant through rather pedestrian fractions.

That being said, I think the race was more a case of Solar Flare losing the race, as it looked like he had put Frost Giant away turning for home.

No matter how you look at it, this was a sad edition of the Suburban

The Surbarban should be stripped from its G1 status

In reality, the Suburban should probably no longer be a Grade I race. Last year, Political Force beat Fairbanks in an equally dismal edition (when Corinthian didn't fire going 10F). With the way the major trainers want so much spacing between races, the Foster and Whitney are the "must-do" races in the handicap division, and the Suburban suffers for falling in between those two races.

Spacing is immaterial when there arent any good horses anyway isnt it? The older horse divisions are painfully weak.

I agree on the general quality of the older division in general, but I do think the Suburban's timing and 10F distance has really hurt it, especially with the Whitney becoming sort of a "Summit meeting"-type race for Eastern handicap horses in recent years and it having been moved to the opening weekend of the Saratoga meet.