Welcome back Mall.

I trust you returned from the tropics with a nice tan and a fat wallet.

I guess one can look at Mr. John's line two ways. On one hand, he always reacts to the 1.5 level while on the other hand he always improves second time after a layoff. Unfortunately, this time he goes second out after having run the 1.5 right off the bench. I think he ran his big race first time out this grouping but I can see the case for the other interpretation.

There are a lot of horses coming off big efforts in this race and more than likely one of them will come close to pairing up but I cannot tell which it will be. If I had to pick one of them, I would go with Windsor Castle (If I had one, Frank A. would get my vote for the Hall).

But instead of trying to guess which will pair-up, I would rather go with a horse that I think has a strong, potentially explosive line - Blue Burner. His overall line that includes a fast pair early 2 and a fast race early 3 and then equalling his 3yo top first out at 4 looks very strong to me. He may not be a real sound horse and he probably will not be around in the fall but he sure looks like he is sitting on a big race tomorrow. Note that he made a big move last year off a very similar line at GP. Unfortunately, I am not sure he will offer value given the connections and I may end up passing the race but 8-1 is good enough for me if the morning line holds up. Maybe with the large field and HH taking a lot of action I will get those odds.

As you noted, I think you can make a similar case for Puzzlement although I think he is a little weaker on just about all counts. However, his odds may be much more generous.

Should be one of those races that will be really easy to handicap AFTER the race is over...

Good luck.

Chris