Re: Elliot Safdie (371 Views)
Date: May 10, 2005 09:23AM
CTC,
"Never was gonna win, but would have saved quite a bit more by down factoring Bandini."
I don't have any regrets about using Bandini - especially in light of how BR ran. I made a lot of money this spring betting lightly raced improving Pletcher horses against popular wisdom about how they would develop. I also avoided some losses by not underrating the chances of some I didn't bet that won. If I wasn't a bonehead I would have had Flower Ally in the Lanes End also. I had the number punched and didn't click "submit" on my computer. I'll take Pletcher every day of the week with lightly raced high quality developing horses.
I can understand some people not liking Bandini because they thought his Bluegrass was too slow.
I can understand some people not liking him because they thought his Bluegrass was too fast.
My opinion was that his performance in the BG was better than the Beyer figure gave it credit for (because pace was a factor), but not so fast that I was questioning his ability to reproduce it (like I was with BR). He ran dreadfully without much excuse (they are saying he was was climbing and may have hurt something).
I don't think there's going to be a way to evaluate that BG after the fact so we can know who was actually right about the race.
If you thought it was very fast you probably still think it was very fast.
If you thought it was slow you probably still think it was slow.
However Bandini ran in the BG, he didn't duplicate it on Saturday.
I hated High Limit Saturday, but I don't think we learned a thing about the BG based on his debacle either.
Consolidator is retired.
IMO, Closing Argument ran the best race of his life Saturday. You could easily argue that his performance in the Derby verfied that the BG was very fast "or" that he was a short horse for the BG as many here (including me) said was possible before the race and improved for the Derby.
I guess Sun King's performance tilts towards the race not being all that fast, but there are plenty of other excuses that can be given for Sun King.
We'll learn more about these horses later in the year if they stay healthy.
Post Edited (05-10-05 10:08)
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