"The Work" sure got everyone's attention.

I think a lot of good points have been made on this string but you have to view the work in the context of the questions you may have about Funny Cide heading into the race. Let's take a look at a few of the possible questions that you might have.

1) Did the fast work take too much out of him? As was noted earlier in the string, Funny Cide worked almost as fast at Belmont Park only 5 days before the Derby and that certainly did not seem to hurt him. Given that the surface may have been a little faster for his most recent work it would be hard to view it as a big negative.

2) Is Funny Cide over the top after his big Preakness effort? You would almost have to view the work as a positive with regard to that question.

3) Can Funny Cide get the mile and a half distance? In this regard, you would probably much prefer a fast early faster late work similar to his pre-Derby bullet as opposed to his very fast early fast late work on Tuesday. However, even here you have to put everything into context. Funny Cide is a free-running horse with a high cruising speed that he can maintain for a long time. Before the Derby, Tagg's main concern was getting him dead fit and getting him to relax early to ensure he could get the Derby distance given his supposedly suspect pedigree and his free-running style. Contrast that with before the Belmont, in which Tagg's main concern was just to let him recover from the prior two efforts while trying to maintain his current form and fitness. If anything, he may have (understandably) done too little with him prior to the latest work given their objectives and all the bad weather. So, if Funny Cide is indeed still fit and sound and in peak form, it is not surprising that he was really on the muscle early in his latest workout. That is exactly what you would expect if he is still feeling good and eager to run. You could even make the case that the work was just what was needed to take a little of the "edge" off him and make him a little less eager early in the race on Saturday.

I remember a similar discussion about 15 years ago when Risen Star had a very similar sizzling work just before the Belmont. I seem to recall that he won that race for fun in the fastest Belmont since Secretariat.

I don't know if Funny Cide will get the 1.5 mile distance and I don't know if a cranked-up Empire Maker can still beat him even if Funny Cide can get the distance but I certainly don't see this workout as a negative factor. If anything, the opposite.

This looks like a 2-horse race right from the start and I sort of like the Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader analogy that has been hinted at in some of the recent pre-race articles.

Let's hope the Belmont turns out to be "Return of the Jedi" rather than "The Empire Strikes Back."

May the force be with the good guys...

Maybe it will distract us for a while from corked bats, steroids, EPO and hyperbaric chambers...

Chris