[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by RolloTomasi

Let's be real. The only "stepping up" the horse did was running an addition 3 furlongs from his maiden trip. He already had the highest Beyer in the field and both Messier and Forbidden Kingdom were hardly battle tested themselves, what with both coming out of 5-horse single file team workouts in the SA Derby preps. Toss in the fact that the 2 favorites both missed training time recently.

Lo and behold, the Santa Anita Derby itself was conducted in a 5-horse single file team workout.

Any of those horses will be in for a rude awakening once they are caught between horses, boxed in, pummeled by kick back, or in tight quarters with a fast pace and additional furlongs to negotiate.

Horse clearly has talent, but I won't be thrilled when Taiba is toast before September.

All of this is true. Well, up until the last sentence. We don't know how that's going to end up. You could be right. You could be wrong. None of that changes the fact that everyone associated with the horse thought it was the wrong move. The owner wanted to try it anyway and was rewarded for taking a shot that almost nobody else would have taken. September is a long way away. The horse could have skipped this race and gone through his normal conditions and still been toast by September. So when you see two vulnerable favorites as you did here, in a big race with a big purse and there is every indication that you might be better than than anyway, you take it. Again, I'm glad he did. I hate traditional paths.