Jan 24th at GP just keeps looking weirder and weirder

[miraja2]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

Even if you ignore Beyers 100% - he ran light years better than he did the last time.

No question, and if a horse improved that much at any other time in his career, it would obviously be extremely strange. To me it just seems far less strange given that the jump came between his first and second lifetime starts, and also came with a significant stretchout to a distance he was likely to prefer.
Of course, I didn't think any of this before the race, so this is obviously just me searching for an explanation after the fact....but to me it doesn't seem THAT odd for him to have improved a great deal given these circumstances. Although, as you point out, the improvement appears to have been quite enormous....so who knows.