Which of the following lines are "less ugly" heading into the Derby?

- A 6pt jump to a near-zero level immediately prior to the Derby (1 big effort)?

- A 6 pt jump to a near-zero level followed by a pair-up prior to the Derby (2 big efforts)?

- Two consecutive 3 pt jumps to a near-zero level prior to the Derby (1 big effort and 1 pretty big effort)?

- A 5pt jump followed by a pair-up followed by another 1.5pt move to a near-zero level all in a 6-week span (3 big efforts)?

The dilemma is that 7 of the 9 fastest horses slated for this year's Derby have had recent ugly tops in the form of one of the above patterns and all of them had similar 2yo tops (in the 6-8 range) with solid lines prior to their jumps. The other two fastest horses include the fastest (if you include sprint tops when evaluating a 1, 1/4M race) that you could argue has one of the weakest patterns heading into the Derby and one other who is the only fast horse heading into the Derby off what appears to be a strong line (the only concern is that fast race as a 2yo). For any of the other slower entrants to win, they would have to jump and all 9 of the faster horses would have to regress, which seems unlikely but not impossible.

I cannot recall a Derby that had so many fast horses heading into the race with such questionable lines - potentially very chaotic.

So what do you do with these 7 question mark horses? Which line is stronger? It seems like the answer to that question is one of the keys to cashing big in this year's Derby.

Any opinions?

Cheers.

Chris