Marcus,

I guess my foundation comment was pretty simplistic (maybe too much so). What i meant is that the negative 1 didn't come out of nowhere. He ran a "3" as a 2 year old, which means to me he established the level of being a quality "race horse". From there, he didn't have to improve tons to get down to the level of being able to compete in the triple crown races.

The fact that he was late to come out this year, thereby missing the chance to compete for the Derby, could hint of soundness, but I read somewhere that he had some type of virus that interupted his training. I think you are right in that the SA Derby is probably a 2 or 3 point regression from his Hutcheson and if you believe in 0-2-x, you can expect a bounce in the Preakness. However, he is a grandson of Valid Appeal and is likely stretching his distance limitations going either 1 1/8 or 1 3/16, so you could read the regression as distance related and maybe not pattern (what I just said could be heresy on this board, but I think that you have to factor distance abilities into the patterns a bit). Now, having gone long for the 1st time and gotten a little leg weary, but then gotten 6 weeks rest into this race, could be get back to his top? Maybe. At 4-1, I would say "no", but at 10-1, I "could" say yes.

Although since I started this thread last night, I have re-watched the SA Derby and what I see is not convincing. I am starting to think that trying to get 3-1 on Hard Spun is the bet (before I set 4-1 as my minimum).