The point being made was how evenly matched this crowd is and how there is no standout among the group. Usually, u have a couple of horses that have put up more than one performance that places them on the board. None of them this year even have two placings on the board, let alone two in triple figures. The high figure among the colts is 107 in a sprint and 104 in a route. Let's look at last year's Derby field:
Keyed Entry had a 110 (sprint), 105 (route)
Sinister Minister had a 116 (route), 102 (sprint)
Point Determined had a 100 and 103 (both routes)
Showing Up had a 100 (at a mile)
Bob and John had a 102 (route)
Barbaro had a 103 (route)
Sharp Humor had a 102 (route)
AP Warrior had a 100 and 101 (both routes)
Sweetnorthernsaint had a 102 (sprint), 104 (mile), 104 and 109 (routes)
Deputy Glitters had a 102 (route)
Lawyer Ron had a 106 (route)
Brother Derek had a 108 (mile), 102 and 108 (routes)
From that group, there are 18 Beyer's of 100+ in races of 1m or longer. This year, so far there are 10. This year's high of 104 in a route was bettered last year six times.
The point I was making was to try to illustrate that this it not that good a group this year. There is consistency and there is the fact that last year's top 2yo's have been this year's best 3yo's. That's nice to see but it shouldn't cloud the fact that while they are consistent and evenly matched, they are below par for what should be considered a good crop. We've just seen a bunch of average performances by a bunch of average horses.
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The real horses of the year (1986-2020)
Manila, Java Gold, Alysheba, Sunday Silence, Go for Wand, In Excess, Paseana, Kotashaan, Holy Bull, Cigar, Alphabet Soup, Formal Gold, Skip Away, Artax, Tiznow, Point Given, Azeri, Candy Ride, Smarty Jones, Ghostzapper, Invasor, Curlin, Zenyatta, Zenyatta, Goldikova, Havre de Grace, Wise Dan, Wise Dan, California Chrome, American Pharoah, Arrogate, Gun Runner, Accelerate, Maximum Security, Gamine
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