Some good thoughts in there Johnny.
When the conversation turned to bad Derby rail draws, I immediately thought of
Lookin at Lucky (Baffert) in 2010. LAL was a Derby favorite (6/1!) from the
rail who had a miserable trip and wound up sixth. LAL exploded in the
Preakness, moving forward from a Derby TG 3
3 to a negative 2.
A LAL Derby win would have been nice for then leading sire Smart Strike. Smart
Strike had two sons (Curlin and English Channel) win at the 2007 Breeders Swamp
at Monmouth but like the leading sire who replaced him at the top of the list,
Tapit, Smart Strike produced no Derby winners.
Poor Super Saver, now standing stud in Whoknowswhereguay or Whereistan, hoping
that the accomplishments of a mare who started in Mexico (Letruska) can punch
his ticket back to the U.S. Uno Mundo!
There have been a surprising amount of Baffertless Derbies.
During the NBC telecast Grindstone's 1996 Derby win was mentioned in numerous
contexts: ridden by Bailey, and the last Derby winner to run without Lasix.
Grindstone beat Cavonnier (Baffert) in a photo that was extremely close. On
that Derby day I had dumped my bets in at OTB (Hylan Blvd) and went home to my
living room to watch the Derby (not Living Room Downs yet, I had no way to bet
from home). I had Grindstone hooked up in a couple of horizontals and
Grindstone and Cavonnier hit the wire and its veryclose and the photo sign is
flashing. ABC cut to commercial like six or seven times, they kept cutting back
and the photo sign was still flashing. I was going bats--t crazy and vowed
never to rely on a network feed again...
When you look at Cavonnier's near miss in 96 I would imagine it is fair to say
that BB came close to winning three consecutive Derbies, 96-98.
I read that Rosario briefly lost an iron at the start of the Derby, giving at
least one Derby jock an excuse for not riding more aggressively. Speculation is
that the narrower starting stalls in the new CD gate may have been the cause of
the lost iron. The narrower stalls have been mentioned as part of the equation
that decreases the disadvantages of drawing an inside post...
I disagree with this. My feeling is that in a 20 horse field, a runner breaking
from the inside will always be susceptible to faster rivals outbreaking him and
cutting over to the rail.
Johnny you only got one thing wrong. I never called "Dynamic" a Belmont "lock".
Far from it, but he is a horse I will have to bet on if he is in the Belmont.
Mostly a pedigree play, and TAP at the Belmont has been a bit of a different
story than TAP at the Derby.
