[saratoga guy]

I guess it's glass-half-full vs glass-half-empty -- but I still think it's hard to make a case for Golden Man as a real up-and-comer...

Originally Posted by parsixfarms

so the tag he ran for was kind of irrelevant.

I'd go along with that if they snuck him in for a tag in the career debut, or tried to sneak him in for a tag after a dud. But Golden Man bombed in his debut for $50K. Dropped to $32K and bombed again. Was unimpressive next time at $25K. And finally broke through the maiden ranks in his second try at the $12.5K level. After that impressive win they still didn't think enough of him to go any further than $25K NW2L.

Originally Posted by parsixfarms

In Golden Man's first race off the claim, he won a NW1X allowance score at Gulfstream, in very fast time. He was super impressive in that race, defeating subsequent Lexington Stakes winner Coin Silver.

I'm not sure whether Coin Silver panned out to be a real barometer of talent.

Originally Posted by parsixfarms

Then his owners at the time (Sandy Goldfarb and Michael Dubb) supplemented Golden Man to the Preakness for $100,000, but he was excluded from the race when it oversubscribed (Giacomo didn't scare anyone off). He ran third in the Peter Pan, where he was only 5-1 in the wagering.

That he was supplemented to the Preakness and went off at 5-1 in the Peter Pan are both interesting -- but the results of the races he ran in are more interesting. He finished third in the Peter Pan and the Long Branch -- both before the back-to-back efforts [the Long Branch was the first of those].

Hardly super exciting.

And the horse that won that year's Peter Pan? Oratory -- never ran again after suffering a broken bone in a subsequent workout. Only five career starts and none spaced closer than 22 days. I'd call him a real up-and-comer -- but what do we blame his subsequent non-career on?