All I can tell you there is no one pattern to hang your hat on. You also need to have the pattenrs of the Key competitors and why they lost like Bellamy Road -5 last year, Bandini -2.5 ( i think) High Limit 0, Greeley's Galaxy -2.5 and Affleet alex (Can't remember that fig now) all going into the Derby off of lifetime tops. So last year you had a number of horses potentially ready to bounce negatively and a couple of horses that moved up.

My only point here is just don't llok at winners because the losers also lost for reason when you begin the process of elimination.

Also one last thing, over the past 3-5 years the number of prep races run by the winner has been greatly reduced. And no horse that has not run as a two year old has won the Derby yet. Most winners did run at least 3 races as a 2yo.

NC Tony