Horses like Funny Cide and Smarty Jones weren't taken seriously as 2yo's despite running triple digit figures sprinting because they both came in wire-to-wire wins of restricted races.
This One's For Phil certainly has rateable speed. I know the Thoro-Graph people are saying he bounced like he figured to and even blamed his stall injury from the stress his big win caused.
They warmed him up pretty excessively in the pre-race like he was about to run five furlongs. Obviously they wanted the lead for some reason - and TOFP was yet again not comfortable at all on the lead. He's proven throughout his career he's clearly better with a target.
It's light years easier for a horse who can run a triple digit sprinting to have a good career routing than it is for a horse who can only run an 85 sprinting to have a good career routing.
A lot of times the big figure ones have the look of obvious no-brainer sprinters though. Quality Road for instance - ran a 101 in his debut at 6.5fs - and wasn't even nominated to the triple crown. Heck - the big race took so little out of him that he didn't even suffer a stall injury from the stress of it.
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