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Originally Posted by Unbridled
Joel, great writeup. As for those that doubt Discreet Cat. Granted he might not have beaten anything in Dubai, but last year I was at Stan Hough's barn up at Saratoga. He pulled out Discreet Cat and told me that he thought the horse had a lot of talent and that even though he was a Forestry he'd be a two turn horse and if he was as good as he thought he was he was going to skip the BC Juv b/c he thought he was a legitimate Derby horse. Four days later he debuted and ran a 103 beyer and 6.5 rag in his debut after cutting out wicked fractions on the front end. Make no bones about it, this is one talented horse.
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I agree 100%...I thought he had a REAL chance to win the Derby (if he would have showed up) despite all going against him from an experience standpoint and the shipping across-seas standpoint...I really did...its kind of the same feeling I had about Bernardini in the Preakness..He lacked experience but I really thought he was a special horse and he proved it, and I really think Discreet Cat is special too. We all know that nobody would have probably beaten Barabro that day at CD, so it was good move they didn't elect to run him..
..however, with Barbaro out and George Washington hurt, I really believe Darley has potentially the 3 best 3-year-olds in the world at each of their respective disciplines.
Bernardini and Discreet Cat taking little convincing for me to believe they are the best 3-year-olds in training right now, and I still believe Henny Hughes is a potential monster in the Sprint ranks...we'll soon see, but I just see us looking back at the end of 2006 and saying,
"Damn, Darley won seemingly everything in the states after Bernardini broke through in the Preakness."
..thats just my forecast, but I acknowledge that it is a very bold statement..
Thanks to all that read and enjoyed it. I love to write about my thoughts on this industry because it goes through my head all day long, and Derby Trail looks like a great platform to do that.