world t bred rankings

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

It's pretty sad if we have horses running 5 times a year like Blame did - and they have trainers keeping them short like you believe. Stall didn't want to have him to sharp because he might bounce from the stress of a big race and his hard campaign? Come on.

And yet you're totally comfortable proclaiming Zenyatta, with her arduous 6-race campaign, as merely prepping in her pre-BC starts simply because she uncorked a bullet work right before the race.

I guess Blame working in :58+ with stablemate Apart (who subsequently took a Graded Stakes) before the Classic isn't considered a "screw tightening" program.

John Shirreffs is clearly the only trainer in North America who knows how to get a horse ready for a big effort. He's the greatest horseman alive.

To bad his sportsmanship is inversely proportional to his horsemanship.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by RolloTomasi

And yet you're totally comfortable proclaiming Zenyatta, with her arduous 6-race campaign, as merely prepping in her pre-BC starts simply because she uncorked a bullet work right before the race.

I guess Blame working in :58+ with stablemate Apart (who subsequently took a Graded Stakes) before the Classic isn't considered a "screw tightening" program.

John Shirreffs is clearly the only trainer in North America who knows how to get a horse ready for a big effort. He's the greatest horseman alive.

To bad his sportsmanship is inversely proportional to his horsemanship.

Shirreffs is the single greatest trainer I've ever seen with workouts. Look at his records with first time starters when he had 505 farms

He has developed a pattern of doing this stuff with established stakes horses. It's why I liked Life Is Sweet in the Distaff so much last year.

As for Blame's 58.80 work - you have to consider the speed of the race track - a 2-year-old maiden named Impersonataor actually worked a 58.40 bullet that morning .. and he was off the board in his next start. I doubt it was anything like Zenyatta's two works .. where she worked with two horses, a fresh horse was thrown at her in the middle of the work, and she worked for almost a furlong past the wire.

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

He has developed a pattern of doing this stuff with established stakes horses. It's why I liked Life Is Sweet in the Distaff so much last year.

Just like this year's JCGC, I think the 2009 BC Distaff was a result of the pace and not Life Is Sweet's specific workout pattern.

You wearing a Mill Ridge baseball cap as you type this filth?

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by RolloTomasi

Just like this year's JCGC, I think the 2009 BC Distaff was a result of the pace and not Life Is Sweet's specific workout pattern.

You wearing a Mill Ridge baseball cap as you type this filth?

You're probably right - that was the other reason I liked Life Is Sweet. She finished behind Letheal Heat twice in a row - and rolled in the BC Distaff.

I wish you would have told Serling that Mott was tanking Unrivaled Belle on Super Saturday... because he called her a lock for that race. Do the man a favor!

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

You're probably right - that was the other reason I liked Life Is Sweet. She finished behind Letheal Heat twice in a row - and rolled in the BC Distaff.

I wish you would have told Serling that Mott was tanking Unrivaled Belle on Super Saturday... because he called her a lock for that race. Do the man a favor!

Part of the problem with this argument is that you are taking it too literal when one uses the term "prep". I'm not really sure if it was Al Stall's intent to lose the JCGC but certainly its possible he didn't, in his judgement, "crank" the colt to full capacity. Or maybe he couldn't have the horse "fully crank" because he hadn't run in 6 weeks or so. Or maybe its all on the horse and he simply wasn't training as well as he did for the BC Classic.

Simply put, the running line for the JCGC was reflective of a classic "prep". That says nothing of the trainer's actual intent. See Thunder Gulch's Blue Grass, Sea Hero's Blue Grass, Unbridled's Blue Grass, Go For Gin's Wood, Unbridled's Super Derby, Tiznow's second Goodwood, Lemon Drop Kid's Jim Dandy, Street Sense's Kentucky Cup, etc. A lot of those efforts were, as you say, the result of pace scenario and other non-ideal conditions (which might be applicable to Unrivaled Belle--who finally got out of the sitting duck spot chasing clear frontrunners in the Distaff). But they still can be called "preps", if for no other reason than their respecitve trainers saw enough to continue on to the Big Dance afterwards.

At any rate, whether you want to say that Blame's JCGC was below par or not, it certainly wasn't a "stinker" or "horrible" as I have seen it referred to, and certainly should not mean that he doesn't deserve HOY.