Ouija Board and Wait A While
 

Saw Ouija Board this morning and wow. Nothing to say but wow. I was acutally in awe of her. Simply amazing.

Wait A While--I wonder if she will be scratched. Churchill is getting pounded with rain again today. The turf course is as soft as can be. It is also suppose to get really really cold here. Something like the low of 29 tonight. This does not bode well for WAW. We all know she likes a hard turf and she is not going to get it Saturday. I love this horse but I give her ZERO chance giving the current turf condition.

Appreciate the update Euro, but I'd love to see her run (to take $$$ from Ouija).

Thanks for all that you've contributed, esp. the last few days

~ dustin

My friend said he thinks Wait A While is going to be scratched too and go out to race the boys and Showing Up in the Hollywood Derby. Oujia Board would crush her anyway.

You are welcome. I want WAW to run so bad and she prob will. But I just wish the turf course was at least firm so she has a fair chance. Right now the turf is THICK and slow and deep and soft. It is a mess. I think it totally favors the Euros.

Not much is going on now on the backside. Tons of light gallops and just walking the shed rows. Every horse looks supreme and everyone is pretty confident of their chances.

I respect the heck out of Pletcher and the one thing I respect the most is he always puts his horses in the best possible position to win. I cannot see her winning on Saturday due to the current Turf conditions. I would not be surprised if he did scratch her. But I want to see her run.

Stupid Question Alert

In the DRF Past races, which is the one for firm turf and the one for soft/yielding stuff Square around the T or circle around the T??

That doesn't mean either one of those things...

A T with a square around it means that it was run on the inner turf course and a T with a circle around it means it was run on the main turf course.

If you're looking for the terms for yielding and firm, yielding is "yl" and firm is "fm."

and Better Talk Now. That horse is far superior on any turf that is not firm. Look for a big effort from him.

From DRF.com clocker report:

Wait a While (five furlongs in 1:01.70 on the inner turf): Perhaps the best work of the morning on either surface. On a yielding turf course, Wait a While, after going a relatively modest 37.99 for her opening three furlongs, closed in a powerful 23.71 and was full of run down the lane under Eddie King.

"When you stack that up against some of the other times, she worked great," Pletcher said.

Good info. Thanks

I was going to post this too.. How in the world can anyone say she "loves a hard turf course"? She's never had a chance to run on anything less than firm, and apparently she was fantastic in her most recent work on wet blades.

in rasta tone.."ya betta talk now."..ateam...

If he somehow wins this race again.. I'll cry. Not just a few tears either. I'll be able to row a canoe back home from AQU on my river of tears if he wins.

Pletcher has publicly stated that WAW does not like an off turf course. This is one reason why he sent the horse out west. It isnt by coincedence that she hasnt run on anything other than a firm turf. It is because Pletcher feels she is at her best on a firm course. Again, this is coming from the trainer.

Correct, thats why he skipped the QE II at Keeneland and sent her out to California. It's intriguing that she supposedly worked well up in New York over a good turf.

Maybe shes just this good.

Pletcher may have said this but then I do have to ask the question of how would he know this to be fact if she's never raced on it? It goes back to the same question I had of Michael Matz saying Barbaro needed all of that time between starts. How could he know that he performed best with more time between starts if he never ran him on short rest? It's just like when people keep saying that a horse is not the same class on dirt as he is on grass (George Washington) and he's never run on the dirt to know this. I understand that the trainers are the ones that should know their animals better than we do but sometimes, I believe they are just guessing. I'm sure that Pletcher probably came to that conclusion by the way she must have worked on softer ground but working and racing are two different things. And then for her to have worked on a yielding course now and he say how great she worked is even more confusing. I get the feeling that he was sort of surprised by it himself because he had probably convinced himself that she preferred a firm course.