Mark,

I'm already in the saarland camp so I'm biased, but here is why I too am taking a positive stance:

1. barely raising a hoof is very harsh. he was beaten just over 3 lengths and must have made up 2 lenghts right at the end. Would I have liked him to close a little more - yes...but it wasn't bad.

2. pace - as mentioned by eb, many other races had sharp(er) splits. my take (being at the @!#$ A, myself yesterday) is that there likely was tailwind in the backstretch (and viceversa in the straight). The flags were moving sharply and planes were shifting (left) so much that I thought one was going to fall. That would explain the final splits, and would make closing ground tougher.

3. in any event, he was (I think) 2w4w. buddha 1w1w. i.e. saarland ran a better number. closer with the other two (SB probably ran a better figure).

4. blue burner (other classy closer) was slightly in front of him all the way, yet a couple back at the finish. so even in your scenario he did better than the other horse supposedly favored by the race.

5. Yesterday I backed first runner-ups (sounds better) lucky devil, mr baskets, for love and honor, medaglia and vodoo (is jerkens hot enough or what?)- yet somehow engineered only one flipping exotic to get some cash in those races. I'm not betting through the derby and if you believe in lucky cyles (I do when it suits me) mine is scheduled for the first saturday in may.