I have to start a new string as I cannot in good conscience join the BEAST band wagon yet.

Congrats to the connections and to the horse. They overcame some adversity, changed up the normal TAP Derby approach and Johnny V. put him where he needed to be on a biased track. He faced some pressure, the fractions were fast early and he drew off never leaving the outcome in doubt.

AD had 3 things in his favor to get the blanket of roses.

1) He was not in the TAP barn as a 2 yr old. He didn't debut at the Spa running a
TG 3. He only had 2 starts, he was not thrown to the wolves ala Syndergard after a gut wrenching Champagne tossed into the BC juvenile.

2) He was babied like no other TAP 3yr old on the Derby trail ever has been before. A Tampa Wednesday maiden breaker with JV making the trip north to ride him against nothing. Then not sent right in to the FOY as per normal MO. Todd got PJ Campo to write a race for him, that Alw race was not in the GP condition book.

There is a lot of debate about the 2 pre Florida Derby figures. Miff who we all know and most have a lot of respect for his conversion of numbers per TG, Rags & Beyer swore that TG was off in the Tampa race per the others. By his conversion of all figs and putting into TG terms had him 10-5-5-8-1. Still not a pretty sheet by any stretch of the imagination, especially heading into The Derby.
Sekrah by whatever method of subtraction etc... questioned both of the figs. I don't buy random figure adjustment, it's a tricky slope.... I talk with Miff and Jimbo quite a bit and both have been the biggest pain in JB's butt about questioning his figs over the years. One a bit more eloquent than the other.

The Tampa track is a quirky one, it's a bit deeper than GP and a lot of top outfits have chosen to race and train over it building a foundation. I may question a ground loaded fig from time to time or ala Practical Joke trust my eyes more than the number is the number. I don't know anything about Tampa and the Alw race at Gulf was again against nothing on a windy day that produced the slowest raw times of the GP winter meet. So you can argue for a week about the 2 pre FL Derby races but the end result was still not a healthy developing 3 yr old pattern leading to a peak performance on the first Saturday in May. FL Derby, explosive race, BIG new top, visually impressive beating not so much.

So you have a non typical FL winter road to the Derby campaign by a Pletcher horse running a big top no matter how you put in perspective. A losing proposition to most and at the very least a suckers value of 9/2. The horse was handled with kid gloves, lightly raced, not tested and earned his big top with visual ease.

3)The Derby week weather and track maintenance was the final piece in this perfect Derby storm. Anyone who wants to question the overall inside not always speed bias of Oaks & Derby day better bring their A game to debate me about it...
Battle of Midway 2p all the way around following AD and LAL with Corey doing his best Calvin Bo-Rail imitation both ran a lot faster than they ever have before today. How JB does this stand alone race this year with weather is a mystery but I know enough of figure projections to back up the above line.

AD will be even money or less in 2 weeks. Maybe then we can determine Beast status....

Good luck,

Frank D.