Curlin & the Classic
 

Anyone else totally disgusted by the Santa Anita surface? ProRider my bottom!!!

If we want to race on grass, why don't we just race on grass -- replace the main track with turf and be done with it?

I don't understand why the US industry is taking the one thing we've been doing for the last 100 years -- dirt racing -- and destroying it.

Curlin lost -- no big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it's a damn shame when the most sporting owner in the last decade is unable to race his dirt champion on a dirt surface in the most important US-based raced of the year.

the most sporting owner in the last decade? i disagree. i would think lord derby might be able to claim that title, with shipping his wonderful mare ouija board all over the world, and to the bc twice, to contest her title.

jess jackson had nothing to lose by going to santa anita-who will hold the loss against curlin? no one. but it was either have curlin lay around all year and do nothing, or race him-no stud farm was interested in that drama.

thankfully, the 20% ownership of midnight cry will be resolved in two weeks at keeeneland. and then you'll see how sporting he really is, as curlin will be retired to stud.

The surface was fair. The best horses won.

DIRT is old news. Fair racing TRUMPS biases.

i disagree. how one can call a synthetic surface a fair surface is beyond me.

There were eight main track races. That's 16 horses that were in the exactas. Of those 16:

-9 have never raced on actual dirt.

-all 16 had either won on grass or on synthetics before yesterday.

-5 had won stakes on grass (Ventura, Church Service, Rebellion, Raven's Pass, and Henrythenavigator).

-4 had won stakes on dirt (Indian Blessing, Zenyatta, Cocoa Beach, Midnight Lute).

Anyone that doesn't see how this stuff leans towards producing results favorable towards grass horses just doesn't want to see it.

interesting stuff. especially the figure that only 1/4th had won on dirt, compared to all 16 having won on turf or awt previously.

Hey trip king, do you think Albarado moved a little early with Curlin?

Wouldn't have mattered when Albarado decided to ask him. The two superior Euros would've still left him in their dust at some point in the stretch, imo.

Asmussen can say what he wants about it being a 'turf race', but, imo, the mandatory 'roid testing this year and the fact that Curlie finally lined up against a couple legit G1 performers had more to do with his sound defeat than the synthetic surface.

It's a very fair question, DaHoss9698 ... and, frankly, I'm not convinced that Curlie would've been able to handle the Euros at, say, Churchill or Belmont. Heck, he was barely beating mediocrities like Wanderin Boy and Past the Point in his dirt races this season. And his speed figures (at least his Beyers) have been nothing to write home about.

He simply doesn't seem to be as formidable when he's not getting a regular 'roid fix ... like he did last season.



By the way, was it hard tearing up your $2.00 win ticket on Curlie last Saturday? lol

My opinion is that the surface didn't get him beaten nor did any premature moves. I thought it was the same move he made at Saratoga and Belmont. The difference was that this wasn't Past the Point and Wanderin Boy he was facing in the stretch. These were two proven top class horses that had a surface that they could take to. Curlin's never looked to be that type that has that quick acceleration that you need to win turf races or synthetic track races since they play like turf. I think that if he was facing the same fields he had faced in NY this year in the BC Classic, he would have won the same way he did those two races. It's sort of like Cigar in 1995/96. He didn't regress at all in 1996. Look at the horses he was facing in 1995. When he faced those same horses in the 1996 Woodward, he won the same way, with the same ease he did in 1995. But when he was facing grade one horses like Skip Away, Louis Quatorze, and Alphabet Soup, those horses weren't as easy to run away from in the lane. Curlin didn't regress this year or move too soon in the BC. He just didn't progress and he faced better horses in the BC.

DaHoss says that his numbers this year are on par with his numbers from last year, minus that BC Classic. I don't know what he would have gotten in the Dubai race but I know that none of his other figures reached the 114 he got last year in the JCGC. They were in the same area though (112 Woodward, 111 JCGC). That's part of the problem though. Generally, we expect horses to improve from their 2yo year to their 3yo year and also from their 3yo year to their 4yo year. How many times do we bemoan the early retirements of our 3yo stars and wonder how much better they would have been as a 4yo? Here, we got a chance to see one continue on and he didn't improve.

Lol ... yeah, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that the colt hasn't improved as a 4-year-old. Frankly, it's pretty embarrassing that his numbers this year are just "on par" with the ones he threw as a 3yo.

Can you imagine if GZ's Beyers at ages 4 and 5 would've stayed "on par" with those he earned at 3? lol



Could the fact that he wasn't on a 'roid regimen this season have anything ... anything at all ... to do with this embarrassing situation, DaHoss9698?

My mind is numb... Exactly when was the last Euro horse to win a Breeders cup race on dirt ?

I know they weren't wins but there were definitely some winning efforts put in by Sakhee and Giant's Causeway in the 2000 and 2001 Classics. Swain in the 1998 one too if he doesn't try to visit the grandstand.

Didn't we have this same steroid argument with Big Brown sometime in the general vicinity of the Preakness and Belmont, and didn't Cannon Shell pretty much poke holes in every theory out there that steroids drastically improve a horse's performance?

Lol ... come on, Duh-Hoss9698, just admit it ... Curlie didn't improve as a 4-year-old because they took away his Winny.


Thankfully, though, we got to see the REAL Curlie this year. A Curlie which struggled to get by turf titans like Wanderin Boy and Past the Point ... a Curlie which threw sub-par BSFs ... and a Curlie which got his head handed to him by a couple Euros in the BCC.

Such things never would've happened to the old, pharmacologically-altered Curlie…

Man, I wish I could have a horse whose sub-par Beyers litter the DRF leaderboard for races over a mile.