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Pletcher did win the 2yo stake that was NOT graded. His horses flopped all weekend in GRADED stakes. Supertesting is being done ONLY ON GRADED STAKES.
Amazingly, Pletcher says he will not be starting any of his half dozen recent 3yo stakes winners in the Preakness. I am assuming that Pimlico will also be doing supertesting in the Preakness (not sure about that - if anyone knows please let us kno
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Mall,
I thought in mid stretch that we were going to hit a big pick 4 just like we did last year on Derby day but it was just not to be this time around. Next year...
Chris
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derby1592
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Check the results of all the graded races run at CD this weekend. Not just the Derby.
Chris
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Supertests 1 - Supertrainers 0
Cheers.
Chris
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Lots of questions again this year in no particular order.
Will BR rate? Will BR bounce? Will BR Freak?
Will J Rose work a trip on AA?
Will Bandini go 4w4w and make his connections regret their strange choice of post?
Will Jerry Bailey win on possibly his last Derby mount?
Will Joe Bravo on the rabbit try to race ride BR wide on the first turn?
Will HL get a perfect trip on the rail stalking the
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Jimbo,
Good post.
The tough part this year is that 3 of the 4 fast ones come in off huge new tops and such horses have bounced at a very high rate in past derbies (see a previous post on the topic which would indicate that a 40% chance of bouncing may be much too low) so the "all 4 of them bounce" in the Derby outcome is not as improbable as it may seem.
In the past, you could usua
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Mall,
I guess sometimes it does pay to be a little insane in this game. Now if either the trainer or the rider would be just a wee bit saner...
Happy to hear you cashed.
Chris
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Hello Mall,
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
I guess I'm insane...
Hope you finish up Kee on a high note.
Chris
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Jimbo,
To me, Colonial Colony looks like the obvious key in the race at anything close to the morning line.
Be careful with Pies Prospect, he is the classic xoxo type and almost always follows a poor effort with a good one. Also his last x was better than his prior x's so I think you definitely should use him in the exotics.
Good luck. I hope you hit it.
Chris
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If Going Wild goes, he is likely a rabbit intended to soften up Bellamy Road. Lukas has done this several times before in the Derby and it often leads to fast early fractions.
He has not done it lately but probably because it would not have helped him much. Past examples going back a ways include Total Departure, On The Line, Real Cash and Honor and Glory - all of which set the early fractions a
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It looks like we had a lot of horses jumped up in their final Derby preps this year. So what can we expect from them in the Derby itself?
I used the same method as I used to look at the "2 preps or less" and "more than 28 days" questions to see what the "facts" tell us.
I compared the "big jump in final Derby prep" sample to the "did not jump"
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Big,
If that is the case, I suggest you book any bets on CA in the BG...:-)
Chris
P.S. Not surprised to see the rider switch on Mr. Sword, that last ride in the Spiral cost me (and I am sure others) some money...
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If you plan to take a stand against one or more of the faves in the exotics and you are looking for a longshot to help boost the price, you might want to consider the one horse that nobody has mentioned - Closing Argument. He has a live line and comes into the race fresh and other than High Limit looks to me like the horse in the race most likely to improve. The obvious negative is the hiccup in
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Sneaking horses on and off the track was something they were supposedly cracking down on this meet.
As I noted in a post quite a while back, hyperbaric chambers can be performance enhancing as well as therapeutic (i.e., "increased tissue oxygenation" means increased stamina and the residual effects of such treatment have been used to enhance performance in human athletes for quite a wh
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Jimbo,
In response to your first point: Going Wild will have no trouble going 45 and change and 1:09 and change in the Derby if that is what the connections want to do (and as Silver Charm also mentioned, Wayne has used this tactic several times before in the Derby).
In response to your question: I am sure that I am not the only one on this board that thinks High Limit is likely to improve in t
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Lukas/Lewis said that they plan to run Going Wild in the Derby along with stablemate Consolidator. I guess they were encouraged by his performance in the Wood...or maybe they are thinking that they might just have him set some torrid fractions in the Derby to try and soften up Bellamy Road, High Limit and the other front runners...
If High Limit freaks in the Blue Grass (and I think he might), t
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What if Hi Limit wins the Blue Grass (which certainly could happen)?
Then we have the following dilemma for the dogmatic players who insist that a horse cannot win the Derby off more than 28 days rest or with less than 3 preps as a 3yo.
Bellamy Road – Only 2 Derby preps
High Limit – Only 2 Derby preps
Blues and Royals – Only 1 Derby prep and only prepped in Dubai
High Fly – 5 weeks since last p
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Bitplayer,
I don't have the information you are looking for but I encourage you to do what you can. One problem you will run into is that young stallions will have small biased samples (biased toward short 2yo races).
I think that the broader take away from all this pre-Derby debate is that with the TG stats we now have a new meaningful, fact-based "language" for these sorts of
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28 days - 19 years ago
Is 28 days a magical number?
Is a longer break a negative for a Derby horse?
Once again, let's see what the "facts" tell us.
First, let me preface the "facts" by saying that all the previous discussion about 2 preps applies to this "more than 28 days since final derby prep" discussion in that there has never been a major prep exactly 5 weeks out in the past.
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Sample size for 2-or-less-preps was 23 (I did not include Worldly Manner since I knew he had a 3yo Dubai prep but there was no fig for it - I think he probably either paired or ran a new top in the Derby so that would make the stats even stronger if included).
Sample size for more-than-2-preps was 107.
I did this manually and could easily have made a mistake. Anyone else can repeat the process
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A group of trainers tried an experiment, they gave a horse 1 prep and entered him in the derby, then they gave a horse 2 preps and entered him in the derby, and then they gave a horse 3 preps and entered him in the derby...
As Mark Twain did once say – "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."
So I tried to do the best I could with the facts to try
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If the sheets for all these horses get posted, I think you will find that a high percentage of them run ran their top or better in the Derby. I would estimate about half of them ran their top or better which would almost have to be a higher percentage than those that came into the Derby with 3 or more preps (will be interesting to see all the sheets).
Also, note that many of these were shipping
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I will not swear that all of these are correct or that the list is complete but it is probably pretty close going back to 1983. These horses all had 2 or fewer preps as 3yos prior to the Derby.
Chris
83 Sunny's Halo
(I probably missed a few but, believe it or not, I could not find another Derby entrant between 1983 to 1992 that had fewer than 3 Derby preps, which tells you a lot about how
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Most of you probably remember the red-hot meet that that Shuman and Gill had at Gulfstream in 2003. You also probably remember the infamous euthanized horse from which Gill had his own vet remove a leg before the track vet could draw fluid from the joint for testing.
Well, here are some snippets from a summary of recent legal proceedings. Sorry about the long message but most of you probably do
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It seems like the popular post-race reaction on the board is to downgrade High Limit's performance today.
I don't quite see why if you look at the numbers.
First, he was the fastest horse going into the race and he probably improved off his 2yo top in his first start at 3. My guess is that his was the fastest 2-turn Derby prep this year to date (I would guess that he ran somewhere b
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ROTW - 19 years ago
Another nice job on the ROTW regarless of the outcome.
I pretty much agree with the analysis with one exception. I am more positive on Borrego.
He has run a top the second time out after a break or freshening the last 3 times (only 3 times) he has had the opportunity and his last was clearly a prep and he won the race easily from off the pace so the poor figure may be a bit misleading and is
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I don't claim to have the answer on the 3-prep vs. 2-prep question. I think it is a legitimate concern but I don't think there is very much useful data to answer the question.
One thing is certain and that is that trainers of Derby contenders today are racing them much less often than in the past (for various reasons).
It was not that long ago that top Derby horses regularly made thei
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Here is an editorial from "Bloodhorse" on the topic by Gary Biszantz, chairman of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. I think he sums up the issues and the current situation in KY very nicely.
Chris
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Alan,
Nice job on the ROTW, regardless of the outcome.
Chris
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