i remember a few years back, storm flag flying ran a few seconds slower than the colts in the champagne, but there were obvious issues regarding changing track speeds that day.

this year, it's not so obvious. beyer gave the winner a 68, which has to be the lowest beyer ever given for a grade 1 race.

did the track change speeds this year, or did we see a grade 1 race completely collapse?

well, let's look at the sires of the runners:

1. service stripe
2. tale of the cat
3. touch gold
4. meadowlake
5. capote
6. unbridled's song
7. carson city
8. meadowlake
9. yes it's true
10. orientate

a few route sires there, but wow, a lot of pedigree tilted towards speed in that group (mixed on the dam side).

8 of the 10 fillies were stretching out to 1M for the first time.

the final quarter in the race was 28 + seconds.

can you do this race "off the horses", or do you have to do what beyer did, and make this race extremely slow?





Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2006 05:26PM by Michael D..