I read a similar quote (I think from Jose Santos) last year about During (a Baffert trainee).

One of my theories in playing the Derby is that breeding is no longer as important as it once was (and is overemphasized by the betting public), because enhanced medication (or whatever) allows many horses to overcome the distance limitations of their sires. That's helps explain recent winning sires like Distorted Humor and Our Emblem.

When Baffert took over the training of War Emblem, I remember reading a quote that War Emblem had reacted well "to our feeding program."

Of course, to take a more balanced view, Bold Ruler had distance limitations, and no one smirks at Secretariat's performances. Maybe the key is the dam side.

In any event, my theory led me to play Read The Footnotes in the first futures pool. That play doesn't look as good to me this morning as it did before the Florida Derby, although maybe he needed to take a step backward. The distance breeding of Friends Lake is hard to question.