Re: Reading Too Much Into Things? (1246 Views)
Posted by:
mjellish (IP Logged)
Date: April 24, 2018 10:07AM
I was mentioning the Baffert not working these colts at Churchill thing to someone last week. My take on it is that Justify has never shipped to race before and doesn't have much experience. So Baffert wants to keep him at SA and ship him in right on top of the race rather than shipping early and risk potentially putting extra stress on the horse. Since he's keeping Justify at SA, he may as well keep Solomini there too.
For the record, this is pure conjecture on my part. But in any case, it's different than his usual MO. I think it speaks to the inexperience of Justify.
No one knows how he is going to handle the ship, the new surface, the crowd, the 20 horse derby field. Also, In two of his 3 races he didn't break real sharply. If he doesn't break well in the Derby he could find himself stuck behind horses taking dirt, which is another situation he has never been in, or be hard used early to establish position heading into the first turn. He doesn't handle the turns well either, and the turns are even sharper at Churchill.
Big, long striding colt with a lot of hype around him who hasn't run numbers that exactly lay over this filed, and he will probably need a clear, outside stalking trip to run his best race IMO.
Certainly no value at 5/2 odds or so with all of the unknowns.