I would draw an entirely different set of conclusions out of the race.

MH lost to a horse whose previous best was 3pts slower than his, and he had already developed 7pts from Nov. It's pretty easy to "not embarrass yourself" when you are 3-5 points better than everyone else in the field, any of the legit contenders on the Derby trail would have destroyed this field.

I'm also drawing the complete opposite conclusion if we have actually validated the Chitu number (have we?). Yes, I suppose you could use yesterdays race to help validate that Chitu ran something like a 2.5 or a 3 in the SUDerby. And what good is that?

It leaves him a couple points behind a large cluster of contenders, which means he would have to run a significant new top and hope that none of the 6 or 7 horses in front of him do, while also getting a better trip than those 6 or 7 horses. That seems like an extremely far-fetched hope. While it has certainly happened in past Derbies, the horses that make that move are almost always deep closers like MTB and Giacamo who have been racing all spring on speed-favoring tracks and become unleashed on the fairer and more demanding CD surface, and not speed horses like Chitu. I can't remember many early speed types that ran a 2pt or better top in the Derby, might be worth a look thru the archives.