Final Verdict ... Fog Is A Fraud

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

If what you are saying is true, then LITF must be one of the best horses off all time. Look at all the other sprinters out there. Look at how spotty their record are. They have run several good races and several bad races. Some days they fire and some day they don't. But according to you, LITF is different. He fires every single time. He always runs the same. The only reason that he doesn't always finish in the same position is because sometimes he runs in tougher spots. The only reason he got beat on Saturday and in the BC Sprint was because those races were tough and there was too much speed but he actually ran his best on those days. If that's the case, then LITF must be one of the greatest horses ever. He ships all over the place, he runs a lot, and he almost always runs in graded stakes races, but most importantly he fires every time. He always runs his best. That's pretty amazing. He must be one of the greatest horses ever then. If you are correct then LITF is the only horse I know of that fires every time.
What you're saying is obviously absurd. No horse runs the same every time, not even LITF. All of these horses have physical problems and based on the way they are feeling, somedays they fire and other days they don't. They don't run their best every time. I know you think that LITF is a machine and runs his best every time but you are wrong.

Once again you're missing the point, Rupe. What Jim ... and several others have said ... is that Lost In The Fog isn't capable of winning against G1/G2-quality open sprinters ... whether he runs his best race or not ... which I guess you'd call "firing."

When a horse finishes towards the back of the field ... ten or more lengths behind in a 6f race ... it doesn't really matter if he ran his best race or not ... there's no way he was going to win.

Was Lost In The Fog at his very best for both the BC Sprint and Smile? Macht nichts ... no way he was going to win either race ... he's just not good enough.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Bold Brooklynite

Once again you're missing the point, Rupe. What Jim ... and several others have said ... is that Lost In The Fog isn't capable of winning against G1/G2-quality open sprinters ... whether he runs his best race or not ... which I guess you'd call "firing."

When a horse finishes towards the back of the field ... ten or more lengths behind in a 6f race ... it doesn't really matter if he ran his best race or not ... there's no way he was going to win.

Was Lost In The Fog at his very best for both the BC Sprint and Smile? Macht nichts ... no way he was going to win either race ... he's just not good enough.

Alright, that is fair. You are making a legitimate argument if so say that he didn't fire but he wouldn't have won even if he did fire. I have no problem with that. But I think it's absurd to say that he ran his race on Saturday.
I'm not saying that I agree with you, but at least what you are saying is reasonable. Here is why I disagree with you though: You guys are basically saying that LITF lost the BC Sprint because he's not that good and he's not a Grade I horse. Here's the problem with that logic. There weren't really any Grade I horses in the BC Sprint. It was actually a pretty weak field last year. Who won the BC Sprint? Silver Train. Who was he? He was a 3 year old who had done way less than LITF. Silver Train was losing to bad 3 year olds all year. The knock on LITF was that he was only winning graded stakes races against 3 year olds. Silver Train was losing ungraded stakes races and allowane races agaisnt 3 year olds. So even if LITF was not a true Grade I horse, he should have still been able to beat Silver Train. How did ST win the race? He wasn't a Grade I horse. I'm sure you guys though that LITF was a much better horse than ST going into that race. ST had never done anything. The field was so bad that ST, who was consistently losing to 3 year olds, only went off at 11-1. What does that tell you? It wasn't that tough of a field. LITF would have been very competetive if he would have run his best.

[ArlJim78]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

Alright, that is fair. You are making a legitimate argument if so say that he didn't fire but he wouldn't have won even if he did fire. I have no problem with that. But I think it's absurd to say that he ran his race on Saturday.
I'm not saying that I agree with you, but at least what you are saying is reasonable. Here is why I disagree with you though: You guys are basically saying that LITF lost the BC Sprint because he's not that good and he's not a Grade I horse. Here's the problem with that logic. There weren't really any Grade I horses in the BC Sprint. It was actually a pretty weak field last year. Who won the BC Sprint? Silver Train. Who was he? He was a 3 year old who had done way less than LITF. Silver Train was losing to bad 3 year olds all year. The knock on LITF was that he was only winning graded stakes races against 3 year olds. Silver Train was losing ungraded stakes races and allowane races agaisnt 3 year olds. So even if LITF was not a true Grade I horse, he should have still been able to beat Silver Train. How did ST win the race? He wasn't a Grade I horse. I'm sure you guys though that LITF was a much better horse than ST going into that race. ST had never done anything. The field was so bad that ST, who was consistently losing to 3 year olds, only went off at 11-1. What does that tell you? It wasn't that tough of a field. LITF would have been very competetive if he would have run his best.

Once again, he doesn't seem to be able to run his best race against big competitive fields. You can call them misfires I call them running to his ability.
When you have to run faster and wider than you are accustomed it's not as easy as when you can just sail out to the lead.

You're right last years BC was not the greatest field and LITF had no excuses. That will go down as his greatest race against older G1 horses. It wasn't a misfire. That's why he is such an easy throw-out in a race like the Smile because he is not a G1 sprinter.

Before the BC sprint I thought that LITF was going to finish up the track and used 5-6 horses in the pick three, ST being one of them, so no I for one did not think LITF was much better than ST. To me he looked good but was unproven in G1's and he remains so.

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

The field was so bad that ST, who was consistently losing to 3 year olds, only went off at 11-1. What does that tell you? It wasn't that tough of a field. LITF would have been very competetive if he would have run his best.

Yes ... it was a weaker-than-average BC Sprint field ... but you write as if Silver Train were the only horse who defeated Lost In The Fog that day ... which is far from the case.

And you're not allowing for any improvement on Silver Train's part ... he was clearly much better at the end of last year than at the beginning ... and has demonstrated that he's even better this year ... at least at Belmont Park ... than he was last year.

Lost In The Fog seems to have been an early maturer ... who did not improve beyond the summer of his 3YO year. He was much-the-best 3YO sprinter through August ... but that's about all you can conclusively say about him.

His record subsequent to that ... speaks for itself.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Bold Brooklynite

Yes ... it was a weaker-than-average BC Sprint field ... but you write as if Silver Train were the only horse who defeated Lost In The Fog that day ... which is far from the case.

And you're not allowing for any improvement on Silver Train's part ... he was clearly much better at the end of last year than at the beginning ... and has demonstrated that he's even better this year ... at least at Belmont Park ... than he was last year.

Lost In The Fog seems to have been an early maturer ... who did not improve beyond the summer of his 3YO year. He was much-the-best 3YO sprinter through August ... but that's about all you can conclusively say about him.

His record subsequent to that ... speaks for itself.

As I've said before, I'm not going to judge LITF on races where he didn't fire. Silver Train lost his first two races this year. He lost an allowance race against Spooky Mulder and he didn't even hit the board agaisnt Mister Fotis. Does that mean that Silver Train's other races are not good. Not at all. He obviously did not run his best against Mister Fotis. I could make the same arguments as you guys. I could say that when ST faces quality competition, he loses. I could say that he only wins when he catches weak fields. We all know that the grading of a race does not necessarily correlate with its difficulty. In general, Grade I races are tougher than Grade III races but not always. I've seen plenty of weak Grade I races. I've seen plenty of strong Grade III races that played tougher than Gade I races.
By the way, Leroidisanimaux is a good example of a horse who simply ran one too many hard races last year. That Woodbine race took too much out of him and he didn't run his best in the BC. It wasn't that the BC Mile was too tough of a race for him. He had bad feet and he didn't fire that day. He actually ran in bar-shoes in the BC Mile.