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Originally Posted by freddymo
Nice generalization horses get better with age? Giant Oaks a bum and needs the 4 horses on the lead to ding dong to suck on by. I am surprised at you Giant Oak? Tell me how many Pletcherized 3 year olds have come off the Derby trail to be Handicap animals? Should we expect I Want Revenge to season with age? What do you make of the 38 sec last 3f's?
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You're doing the generalizing by infering that I suggested every horse will 'get better with age'. I said 'horses reach maturity at age 4'. That's just a fact. And you're answering you're own retort or question in regards to Pletcherized 3yo's... Different owners and barns have different goals. Horses that are wrung out early are not going to 'get better with age'. They're going to disappear. But a horse like Giant Oak that has been well managed and allowed to fully develop can be in position to capitalize at the point when he's at his best. He just ran his BEST race in career start #24, but he's a bum. Why? Because it took until fall of his 4yo year for him to get close to being a complete racehorse?
As to the pace, Giant Oak went his final 3f in sub :37.0 (:36.3). Are Block and Bridgmo supposed to apologize because there was a serious pace in the race? It was the Donn Handicap. It's the kind of race that is supposed to have an honest pace. Everybody runs their race and the dust settles where it settles. Fly Down and Ron the Greek got that same pace set up and couldn't get closer to the three collapsing leaders than 4.5 and 8.5 lengths respectively. Giant Oak ran a very nice race against a very nice group. Instead of being judged on earlier career shortcomings, he deserves to be judged on what appears to be the current, more complete version, of what he is as a racehorse.