3YO preps; who really was the best horse in each race

[jjf1031]

Originally Posted by randallscott35

A horse that closes in 11 and 3 when the horse in front still runs 12 and 2....C'mon how about Jazil in the Wood last year....They collapsed in front of him.

perhaps his "late" run was also a product of him re focusing? Not sure but I guess we will find out in Wood with addition of blinkers

[randallscott35]

Originally Posted by jjf1031

perhaps his "late" run was also a product of him re focusing? Not sure but I guess we will find out in Wood with addition of blinkers

What, it was the phoniest close of all time? They stopped completely!!

[JJP]

Since I started this thread, there's been quite a few more preps. Let's take a look at the more recent ones:

Wood Memorial--this one will ruffle some feathers, and maybe I'm a bit biased because I know Nobiz is the definitive "hype" horse but if you factor ground loss in at all, Any Given Saturday arguably ran a better race. He was real wide on both turns. Nobiz did run a solid race under pressure the whole way but saved every inch of ground. But when you consider the likely odds disparity between the two horses, you have to like AGS better to be in the tri in Louisville.

Florida Derby---I wrote a thread about how I thought Beyer blew Scat Daddy's number. I originally gave him a 105 but have adjusted to 103; still 5 pts better than Beyer had it. The pace was solid and he won anyways.

Illinois Derby---this race was a product of both a crawlfest pace and a rail bias. Reporting for Duty did a very good job closing on the very slow pace, although he was hugging the rail to do it. Still, I came away more impressed by him than w/Cowtown Cat.

Ark Derby----this couldn't be more obvious. Curlin has been much the best in all three of his starts. He will be favored. Thought he was more impressive than Smarty Jones was at OP three years ago.

Blue Grass----with the incredibly slow pace, its amazing that Dominican outclosed Street Sense to win. No doubt he ran the superior race but all three of his wins are on Poly so it could be a giant leap of faith to use him at CD. But the price will still be very big and he hasn't done much wrong recently.

SA Derby---fast pace; King of the Roxy ran a very big race to do all the work and was narrowly beaten while the winner had the good pace setup.

Historically, the "best in last race" angle has been very strong and has uncovered some live longshots winners.

[hockey2315]

Originally Posted by JJP

Florida Derby---I wrote a thread about how I thought Beyer blew Scat Daddy's number. I originally gave him a 105 but have adjusted to 103; still 5 pts better than Beyer had it. The pace was solid and he won anyways.

Huh? Scatt Daddy's a closer. . .

I think people tend to blur the derbies of Lil E Tee 1992 and Sea Hero 1993. Lil E Tee was a very good horse, Sea Hero was not good at all. The Lil E Tee race sort of collapsed for some strange reason after a mild pace, only Lil E Tee and the runner up were even running at the end. Very strange but the first two had a lot of distance from the rest. Maybe 'cause Lil E Tee was not a good name for a horse