Messier and Tabia not going to Baltimore.

[i]“Both Taiba and Messier will head back to California,”[/i] Yakteen said in a text message Monday to Horse Racing Nation. [i]“They came back in good shape. We will regroup and come up with a campaign.”
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In old news from an espn.com story:

[size=medium][b]Medina Spirit and two other horses trained by Bob Baffert will be under extra scrutiny in the days leading up to the second jewel of the Triple Crown. The Maryland Racing Commission and Baffert have agreed to the conditions for Medina Spirit, fellow Preakness runner Concert Tour, and Beautiful Gift, who is expected to run in the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes on Friday.

"We reached an agreement with Mr. Baffert and his lawyers that allows for additional testing, additional monitoring -- essentially a watchlist to ensure the integrity of the sport leading up to the race," Maryland Jockey Club lawyer Alan Rifkin said. "We're very pleased to have that, and we appreciate Mr. Baffert's patience and the way in which his lawyers went about it.[/b]"[/size]

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Beautiful Gift lost by 17 lengths as the 2.20-1 favorite in the Black Eyed Susan.

Medina Spirit ran 3rd losing to Rombauer and Midnight Bourbon by 5.5 and 2 lengths respectively as the 2.40-1 favorite. What did those two go on to accomplish???

And Concert Tour lost by 34 1/2 lengths at 3.70-1 (3rd choice) running 9th of 10.

But hey, you guys can keep on telling me that monitoring horses closely before a big dance doesn't mean a single thing with the results of graded stakes races.

Kind of related but kind of unrelated: wonder if anyone could to a dirt graded stakes study showing how many horses have won year by year that were 10 lengths or more behind after the first call of a sprint or first call of a route (half mile). My guess is in the past 5 to 8 years it is less than say 12-20 years ago.

Anywho, at least there are serious productive discussions on the board about racing.