My annual rehashing....

[The Indomitable DrugS]

No horse who won his career debut at either Saratoga or Del Mar has returned to win the eclipse award title as champion 3-year-old male the following season.

The great Tom Fool won his debut at Saratoga back in 1951 enroute to a championship 2yo season. Even he didn't pull it off.

This years stellar class of Saratoga debut winners includes War Pass, Slew's Tiznow, J Be K, Majestic Warrior, Mamionides, Big Brown, Z Humor etc.

Extremely promising 2yo's led by such horses as ('00) Macho Uno, ('01) Mayakovsky, ('02) Sky Mesa, ('03) Birdstone, ('04) Proud Accolade, ('05)Discreet Cat, ('06) Tiz Wonderful, have very impressively and very swiftly won debut races at Saratoga ... only to have fairly injury plauged 3yo seasons the following year.

There is a similarly impressive list as far as Del Mar goes. It's topped by 2yo champions such as Vindication and Declan's Moon ... both very fast Del Mar debut winners who came apart there after.

Not that this stat/trend has to really mean anything... even if War Pass isn't able to break it, it would be nice to see him have an injury free season.

Of the real nice debut winners from Saratoga last year that I can think of - only the very promising Slew's Tiznow seems to have had the fork stuck into his 3yo season so far.