Final Verdict ... Fog Is A Fraud

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by dr.fager

Ok, my only question is why run him this past Saturday then? Why not keep him in California instead of shipping him across the country?

Bing Crosby is coming up, or didn't they want him to lock up with Bordonaro?

These trainers run their horses all the time when they're not doing well. It would be easy to name 1000 horses that have run when they weren't doing well. Most horses don't stay in form for very long. One of the main reasons is because they are very fragile and most of the time they are battling some type of physical problem. If trainers only ran horses when they were at the top of thier game, we'd have nothing but 3 horse fields. I doubt Gilchrist knew for sure that the horse would run bad. The horse was coming off a nice win. I think he probably had some of the sme problems going into that race, yet he still won, so I'm sure that Gilchrist was hopeful that maybe the horse would win despite the fact that he wasn't at his best. The reason he chose the Calder race was because of the timing and because of the huge purse, not to mention that the horse had won at Calder before.

[Rupert Pupkin]

I have one more point to make. I've already said it, but I don't know if I really made it clear. In my opinion, you don't assess a horse's ability simply based on who they beat. It's not who they beat. It's how they did it. Case in point is Afleet Alex. He may not have beaten anyone great in the Preakness or Belmont, but you could still see that AA was a great horse based on his performance in those two races. It doesn't matter who he beat. It was how he did it.
Giacomo, on the other hand, won the KY Derby and he beat a great horse in Afleet Alex(who obviously did not run his best in the Derby ) that day. So not only did Giacomo win a huge race, he beat a great horse. Despite this, Giacomo is far from a great horse.
So we have Afleet Alex who never beat anyone and he is a great horse. Then you have Giacomo who did beat someone, yet Giacomo is not a great horse.
This type of stuff is quite typical in horseracing. There are many ordinary horses out there who have beaten great horses. And there are many great horses who have never beaten good horses. It's not who you beat. It's how you do it.

[ArlJim78]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I have one more point to make. I've already said it, but I don't know if I really made it clear. In my opinion, you don't assess a horse's ability simply based on who they beat. It's not who they beat. It's how they did it. Case in point is Afleet Alex. He may not have beaten anyone great in the Preakness or Belmont, but you could still see that AA was a great horse based on his performance in those two races. It doesn't matter who he beat. It was how he did it.
Giacomo, on the other hand, won the KY Derby and he beat a great horse in Afleet Alex(who obviously did not run his best in the Derby ) that day. So not only did Giacomo win a huge race, he beat a great horse. Despite this, Giacomo is far from a great horse.
So we have Afleet Alex who never beat anyone and he is a great horse. Then you have Giacomo who did beat someone, yet Giacomo is not a great horse.
This type of stuff is quite typical in horseracing. There are many ordinary horses out there who have beaten great horses. And there are many great horses who have never beaten good horses. It's not who you beat. It's how you do it.

In my opinion it is definetely not an either or. It has to be both, who the horse beat and how. No question. The who and the how are both important.
To say that it doesn't matter who a horse beats seems somewhat absurd to me. The best situation is to find a horse that beats classy fields and looks good doing it.

I also don't agree with your comment that AA didn't run his best in the derby.
Are you saying he didn't "fire". I'm sorry but to me it was the single best performance in that derby all things considered. It was an incredible race. If you're saying he could have won it with different rating tactics I would agree, but how much more could AA have given that day?