Flower Alley looked better than Roman Ruler on the basis of the Dwyer. Monmouth favors speed and it wasn't a shock that Roman Ruler just wore down Sun King there. Those two are good milers.

Lets be real here though. The whole issue pertains to a LIGHTNING quick track on April 9th and an inability to triangulate Bellamania's effort with another representative two turn race. Do you really think Don Six, Medallist and Forest Danger all equaled the six mark Aqueduct track record on the same day without a blistering surface? Never mind Foggy, I still think he's gonna get his hat handed to him as soon as he moves up out of the 3YO's. Anyway without the ability to use a variant, many figure makers were left with extrapolation from previous efforts. Survivalist had run a 4 in his Gotham Mile, so Tgraph assigned him a 4 for the Wood, based upon probabilities he probably repeated. This despite the impression he wants no real part of two turns, which was subsquently born out. Once that was done the beaten lengths equated to -5 for Bellamania. All along some said WAIT A MINUTE there. You can look at the Wood field and its clear many flat out collapsed in that race. Scrappy T nearly dead heated for the place with a slipped saddle his trainer thought cost him as much as 10 lengths. Why couldn't Bellamania have run a Negative 1 on that track? Oh, because he ran it in 1:47 and tied Riva Ridge's track record right? No, because that would have given Survivalist an 8 and he couldn't have run an 8 trying two turns for the first time right?

If some think Bellamania lost because he wasn't tight, all I can say is back him at 10 marks next time. Suburban or Jockey Club Gold Cup. He's a competent -1 horse and thats what he was. He ran into a -2 horse is all and he ain't got the gas to get by that kind of speed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2005 01:27PM by Chuckles_the_Clown2.