So what happened to Casino Drive
 

All the hooplah, and then....

Any reports on what happened, what the trainer said, and where this horse is going?

.......this should be good......

Get off his back, He's done enough!

I'm actually serious. I've heard nothing since the race....although, he actually may have done too much:D

He's as fragile as they make them. He went steadily the wrong way after the race he ran two weeks earlier, and if you listened to ATR, people were well-warned to toss him. There is a reason horses like this only run once every 5 months...

They should have simply trained him up to the race if they hoped to get anything approaching a productive performance from him. You won't see him again any time soon. Frankly, it borders on criminal that he was allowed in the race to take people's money.

And Jay brings up a good point.. Where are the all the Casino Drive touts this week?

All true....but none moreso than the final part. They disappeared into cyberspace

On the other hand.....do we miss them?

You could simply have read any sensible post here and known to toss him.

Excerpt, JRA press release...


In an unexpected move, Casino Drive set the pace in the 1 1/4 mile Classic after Victor Espinoza took him to the lead straight after the break.

Mr. Kazuo Fujisawa, trainer of Casino Drive, said after the race that leading was something he never imagined. “The horse always races from behind, and that was the plan before the race. Even in the lead the horse seemed to be traveling well, but it was just too fast. The horse running second in the middle stages also found nothing when the swoopers came”.

He added that the horse pulled up tired but well and is likely to be flown back to Japan on the 1st November, and will be spelled for the rest of the year.

I think that most sensible and logical handicapping angles said he had no chance. But there was still something a little mystical about him. At least to me. It was like, you know that there is some ability there and you don't want to be the one that completely misses the boat. You don't want to be the Portland Trailblazers who passed on MJ. Or one of the 12 teams that passed on Kobe Bryant. I didn't pick him to win or really factor him as a win candidate and I didn't bet the race but if I had, I admittedly would have put him somewhere in the exotics.

Sometimes it's hard to discern sensible from senseless... Brad Free was explicit in his warning to people to exclude him.. And I reiterated it every chance I had. As you and I discussed, it was outrageous that he was in the field at all.

I understand the 'mystical' aspect, but I believe that yes.. you did want to miss this boat... because 98 times out of 100, that boat sinks.

Anyone who bet money on this horse in the Classic shoudn't be betting horses, though I have no problem with idiots throwing free money to go after into a pool. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to see that a horse with three starts and his PP's had no shot in a field of that class regardless of who his mom is. No shock we haven't heard from them. Steve, you can warn some people until you are blue in the face and they still won't get the clear message.

The UNEXPECTED is EXPECTED when Espinoza is up (and a few hundred other jocks, for that matter). Hope Mr. Fujisawa enjoyed GETTING BENT OVER the AMERICAN way. :rolleyes:

Too bad Coach is on vacation, he would definitley stand up for Victor! :rolleyes:

Comparing passing on Kobe out of High School ( by the way, the Nets wanted to draft him, but he said he wouldn't play for them ) to picking Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan is quite a stretch.

I know, you didn't compare them, but to include them in the same analogy is ridiculous.

Fat, look at his ride yesterday on Times gone By or whatever, 7th race, brutal, absolutely putrid....gets that horse beat by a 50k claimer...

No doubt.

I'm puzzled why CALI tracks (other than DMR and GG) refuse to show the FULL headon replays. Is is a stretch to assume that some horse players are interested in seeing what happens on the turns and the backstretch? For example, it's obvious that TGB is widest on the backstretch, and thus running without cover, a huge disadvantage. Moreover, especially in turf races, footwork is very important; not just what lead they finish on but the lead at different stages of the race. Why deprive the horse player of that angle? WTF, why are we regressing rather than progressing as the technology improves?

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Straight cash, homie

I love Casino Drive :) I don't mind he finished last.

at some point it should have clicked that speed horses weren't going to finish on that track.

Well Armed was a complete toss before the mile, and he was a better fit in his respective race than Casino. When the Catalano horse also went to the pace in that race $$$$$

I think the thing to do in the classic was tossing casino and fairbanks completely out of the top 4, and as soon as Casino went to the lead, you really didn't look at him again and started screaming "navigator"