garbage ;)
on racing record - You have to judge Curlin to get a standard for where Hard Spun belongs. If you consider Curlin the 1st or 2nd best racing 3yo, that bodes well for Hard Spun to be closely ranked. Both times Hard Spun didn't have a garbage ride he beat Curlin. To be fair, you have to consider Curlin's garbage ride in the Derby where Albarado asked nothing out of the gate, and was left with a lot of work, when he could have loomed in the pocket that Sedgefield enjoyed. You also have to be realistic that even a decent ride for Hard Spun in the Preakness would have likely left him short of the top two that day.
Do you rank the Pletcher move-up AGS 3rd best or HS? Up to you. Maybe it comes down to specific distances with these two. Saturday is clearly more explosive in the last two races and possibly better than 3rd best for pure racing ability right now. We wait to see if AGS will revert back to his natural ability under a stressful 10 panels in the BC Classic.
on physicallity - Hard Spun is the best 3yo dirt animal. He made Curlin look like a donkey head-to-head in the Haskell paddock, and Curlin is a big boy himself! HS is a superior animal. This is no runt. Street Sense and Curlin are beautiful horses, but Hard Spun is a cut above.
on pedigree - His pedigree is pretty good. A little hard to compare pedigrees, but I don't know that I would rank Hard Spun necessarily top-5 of the 3yos. He could easily turn out to be. Will be interesting to see if they breed him with any classy turf producers as well.
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