Decent Group, Return of Nicanor- Thursday Keeneland

[ateamstupid]

Originally Posted by Merlinsky

Except that they pointed him to the Virginia Derby before he got hurt. What are they supposed to do? Put him in a graded stakes route off a layoff? Why not at Delaware? I assume Matz still takes a string there. If only for convenience just run him in his backyard where he broke his maiden. Might as well, and it worked well enough the first time.

C'mon. He ran a few nice races on dirt and they ditched that perplexingly quickly. Then instead of sending him to NY or Kentucky to try him against decent turf horses, they kept him at Delaware to beat up on slugs. I don't remember them campaigning Barbaro based on "backyard convenience" and "might as well" races. They've treated Nicanor like a good horse who doesn't have anything he's great at, and that's what he is. He had no excuse yesterday from a trip standpoint, and I don't buy that he was short either. He had 31 furlongs of works in him the last six weeks and a pair of bullet five-furlong works. What more could Matz have done to have him ready?