>>Super Frolic (114) (9-2) – ran big figures flying under the radar at CRC and DEL, and then was purchased on our recommendation and sent to California. We’re not big believers in pace except in extreme situations, but in the Pacific Classic he had a worse trip than the Lusitania—3w3w while contesting fractions of 454 and 1:101, going a mile and a quarter. In that race, he was at level weights with Perfect Drift, who will be favored here, and lost to him by less than five lengths despite running several lengths off his best. Today Super Frolic gets eight pounds, worth about three lengths—which means if he gets
back to his best, he’s a likely winner.<

The pace aspect of this analysis warmed my heart. :)

IMO, SF ran very well last time out.

The 3 duelers were Lava Man, Surf Cat, and Super Frolic. Lava Man had the rail, Surf Cat was between horses, and Super Frolic was on the outside. SF finished only about 4 1/4 lengths behind Lava Man and ahead of Surf Cat despite the ground loss and being used harder in that pace from the outside to keep up with the others.

It's hard to tell how much the pace impacted Lava Man and how much was him just not firing his best shot. He was vanned off. It is fairly clear he didn't run as fast as in his other recent races though. So it is likely that the pace took something out of him. If it took something out of the best older horse in CA who was dueling on the rail, what did it take out of the somewhat weaker horses that were wider? Plus, just finishing ahead of Surf Cat despite a slightly more difficult trip while giving 7 pounds is a pretty darn good performance on its own. Surf Cat is no slouch.










Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2005 08:27AM by classhandicapper.