Re: Big Breeze from General ARod today (830 Views)
Posted by:
TGJB (IP Logged)
Date: April 17, 2014 01:18PM
Jim-- hard to say how fast that work was given so few worked, we don't know whether he or they were asked, etc. But it's still 16 days out, anyway-- it's not like he worked 57, 4 days out, which has been done. I'll be interested to see what Welsch has to say, he's been good about this.
Richie-- here's a stat I won't get to use in the seminar, with Constitution and Bayern out. Of the 15 horses to run in the Derby without starting at two, in the Archives, exactly zero ran a new top in the Derby. Both those horses were going to need one. What's interesting is that 5 paired their tops, a much higher % than average.
I don't the issue is "bottom", or number of starts at two. There are reasons these horses don't start earlier-- and you're asking an awful lot of them in a short period to come from not being able to start to doing enough to qualify, but not be knocked out (or injured) by all that stress. I think both Constitution and Bayern may have shown the effects.
By the way-- someone is sure to bring up Barbaro, who just got under the wire to start at two. Yes, he ran big in the Derby. But up to that point he had gotten away with slow figures-- once he exploded and ran the big one, it was sayonara.