Big time! I will very likely place a sweet win bet on Essence as well as using both of O'Brien's horses with Essence in exacta's and some tri wagers which I rarely place. Oh if there will be a Oaks derby double offered thnis year I'll use the 2 Godolphin filly's.
I'm praying they will all be overlooked.
With Essence I have one question to be answered which won't be answered til a few minutes prior to the start and that is how he will handle the chaos during saddling and the post parade. He's an extreamly high-strung animal and has always been a handful and despite running in front of 50,000 people twice already at Belmont and Nad Al Sheba thats nothing compared to derby day. I will re-think everything in a heartbeat but the Oaks/derby double if I don't like what I see in the paddock and warm-up.
Expect to hear reports from Churchill praising the way Essence looks, works and acts. I also expect him to be closer to the pace than many people think because of his new jock and the 6 weeks from his last effort.
My confidence in the Coolmore horses is not as great as with Essence but I have more confidence in them than in any of the others. One issue I do not have is conditioning/fitness/bottom or whatever you want to call it. I have complete confidence in O'Brien and his training methods and the whole operation over there at Ballaydoyle. I do have a distance issue with Johannasburg and a class issue with Castle however no other horse(s) with maybe the exception of Perfect Drift gets my adreniline flowing like the above 3.
Geez, Johannasburg looses his first race back in 6 months-a roughly run race by a nose to a horse that raced competitivly against the likes of Lailani, Banks Hills and Terre a Terre last year and now he's a toss out for many people! What kind of common sense handicapping is this! That filly that beat him is going to be a monster this year.
The general opinion of many, and I generally agree, for several months now has been that this crop is not all that special. And in my opinion the preps have confirmed that opinion, and now it seems everyone has abandoned that opinion and is struggling to latch onto one or two horses and forgetting about what they used to think about this crop of 3 year olds. The up side is this year should continue the trend of the derby offering exceptional value.

I don't know what JB's plans are but I'm hoping there will be thoro-graph numbers for the Dubai efforts and for the race in England for Castle and the one in Ireland for Johhannasburg.