Gotta love Watchmaker....

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

First of all, the BC jinx is silliness, I agree with you on that and it isn't even worth discussing.

However, on your other example....yer kidding...right? Considering the BC Juvenile in THE race for 2YOs while the Remsen is one of a few late season 2YO races, and not exactly one that horses point to en masse like the BC Juvenile, I would say the numbers you pointed out show, if anything, the Remsen to be a staggeringly solid race as far as pointing out TC contendors.

Now, I don't believe in any of this, as theoretically all three of the major racetrack late season preps, the KY Jockey Club, the Hollywood Futurity and the Remsen should always be reasonable indicators of the next years TC races, but the comparison you chose does not support your point...if there really could even be a realistic one.

Just for the sake of comparing, I looked at some horses from the Hollywood Futurity to see how they've done. Again, this is horses that ran 1-2-3 in either of the races and went on to win a Classic the following year:

Remsen
Pine Bluff
Go for Gin
Thunder Gulch (2)
Empire Maker

Hollywood Futurity
Snow Chief
Ferdinand
Alysheba (2)
AP Indy
Thunder Gulch (2)
Real Quiet (2)
Point Given (2)
Giacomo

U can take out Thunder Gulch since he ran in both races.

# of TC races winners (total number of TC races won)
Remsen-3 (3)
Futurity-7 (10)

If u looked at the horses from both races that didn't win a TC race but hit the board in one of them, u would add:

Remsen
Bluegrass Cat

Futurity
Stephan's Odyssey
Best Pal
Dance Floor
Casual Lies

That doesn't even include horses like Captain Steve, Millennium Wind, High Yield, Lion Heart, Temperate Sil, Brocco, and Afternoon Deelites, all of whom went on to win grade one races as 3yos after hitting the board in the Futurity. The Remsen claims Java Gold, Talinum, Skip Away, Coronado's Quest.

So maybe if Tagg is skipping the BC because he's looking for a successful sophomore colt, he should skip the Remsen and come West. Of course, now that the Futurity will be run on JunkTrack, it's going to become an irrelevant race.

A quick check shows that there have only been two horses from the KY Jockey Club to win a TC race over the same period (Editor's Note and Real Quiet) for a total of three wins.