[the_fat_man]

Originally Posted by golfer

Based on the Thorograph figures:

Silver Timber was consistently running 5's and 6's from age 3 to age 5.
In this 6 yr old gelding's first start this year he ran a 5. Was then claimed from Linda Rice, and in his 1st start for Chad Brown, ran a 2. Unless yesterday's course was playing EXTREMELY fast, he improved off that 2. Someone more knowledgeable than I, please tell how normal it is for a 6 yr old to run lifetime best races back to back, after being claimed from a trainer who is far from incompetent (to say the least)?

Thanks for posting this, as I think it gets to the point from another perspective and thus add even more credence to what's being advanced here.

I have charts of this horse's races going back to 8/13/07 at SAR. That's 13 races, including the two under Brown. Prior to its 1st race under Brown, this would be 11 races, this horse had never wiped-out a field. Never come close. Yet, it did so, 1st time Brown. While wipe-outs happen more rarely on turf than do on dirt (especially off tracks), they're even rarer in sprints, as it takes a monster effort to separate from EVERY other horse in the race going a short distance. And yesterday, the ****er ran the following splits:

21.71
22.82
10.67
12.40

Now running 10.67 for the 5F eighth is quite a feat. Don't think I've ever seen that on the BEL turf. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here.) But doing so after an initial quarter of 21.71 is pretty remarkable, hard turf and all. I mean, they don't do **** like this on the Cali turf sprinting.