7/25: Saratoga (Day 7; Curlin)

[ScottJ]

Originally Posted by pointman

Just curious, if the Saratoga jockey colony is not top flight, what colony is?

Exchange Javier Castellano and Cornelio Velasquez in that third race and the results are different. Many feel that watching the jockeys is unimportant at Saratoga and I tend to disagree greatly. Hence, my comment regarding interchanging those particular third race pilots.

As for the strength of the colony, I have always agreed that these (along with Del Mar's group) are very talented; that said, it is fairly clear that few if any can adequately judge pace and internal fractions in a race which is a major gap in their arsenal. If I have this wrong, why do we see so much discussion about NYRA-disease - also known as "clutch and grab"?

[pointman]

Originally Posted by ScottJ

Exchange Javier Castellano and Cornelio Velasquez in that third race and the results are different. Many feel that watching the jockeys is unimportant at Saratoga and I tend to disagree greatly. Hence, my comment regarding interchanging those particular third race pilots.

As for the strength of the colony, I have always agreed that these (along with Del Mar's group) are very talented; that said, it is fairly clear that few if any can adequately judge pace and internal fractions in a race which is a major gap in their arsenal. If I have this wrong, why do we see so much discussion about NYRA-disease - also known as "clutch and grab"?

I can't say I have ever heard anyone say that the jockey's in the Saratoga colony are interchangeable. Can anyone really say that you can use Abel Lezcano in place of Jose Lezcano and lose nothing?

Certainly the NY colony has been very frustrating all year with the grabbing instead of being aggressive with speed horses. However, there is no colony that is even close to being as good as the Saratoga colony, regardless of how frustrating the grabbing has been. The grabbing has not been limited to NY either.

The Del Mar colony is not even close to the Saratoga colony. When Edwin Maldonado is one of the top riders in a colony there can be no comparison to the Saratoga colony.

[jms62]

Originally Posted by pointman

I can't say I have ever heard anyone say that the jockey's in the Saratoga colony are interchangeable. Can anyone really say that you can use Abel Lezcano in place of Jose Lezcano and lose nothing?

Certainly the NY colony has been very frustrating all year with the grabbing instead of being aggressive with speed horses. However, there is no colony that is even close to being as good as the Saratoga colony, regardless of how frustrating the grabbing has been. The grabbing has not been limited to NY either.

The Del Mar colony is not even close to the Saratoga colony. When Edwin Maldonado is one of the top riders in a colony there can be no comparison to the Saratoga colony.

And Castellano times his move in the 7 just a bit too late.

[ADJMK]

It sure looked like V.E day gave Charge Now a solid bump down the lane and they don't even look at it. There goes my P4.

[Pants II]

Toga 10
$.50 tri 1,7/1,4,6,7/1,2,3,4,6,7 $12
$4 ex box 1,7
$20 win 1

[ScottJ]

It will be interesting to see how Race 10 is decided - the 10 clearly herded the 9 outwards into the 5; meanwhile, the 9 forced himself into a lane which did not exist in the stretch. This could clearly be a double-DQ.

[ScottJ]

Originally Posted by ScottJ

It will be interesting to see how Race 10 is decided - the 10 clearly herded the 9 outwards into the 5; meanwhile, the 9 forced himself into a lane which did not exist in the stretch. This could clearly be a double-DQ.

A single DQ takes place as they leave the "splitter" in the win slot and downgrade only the 10 horse behind the 5 horse.

Would love to be able to ask the stewards where the lane came from that allowed the 9 to split horses. Seriously, the first six days of this meet have been a rodeo event.