> Author: JimP 
> Date:   03-21-04 18:46
>
> Any comments on Smarty Jones? I would like to hear from you guys
> with more experience with these figures than I have. Three straight 0s
> at 2-year old and early 3, and then wins the Rebel yesterday in impressive
> fashion. I would think this is a little unusual.

JimP's inquiry about SMARTY JONES seems to have gone unanswered.
So, I'll offer my thoughts on this colt.

SMARTY JONES put it all together last out to win the Rebel. There were
no gate mishaps or "off slowlys" this time. He ran a terrific race. Seeing as
he ran down PURGE, a Todd Pletcher-trained sprinter who was stretching
out second-off-a-layoff, who figured to tire late, I reasoned after the Rebel
that SMARTY JONES had simply run his 0 again - his fourth one in a row! -
and that PURGE had regressed somewhat, just as many Pletcher horses
have done before. [See Pletcher's VALUE PLUS in the Florida Derby, and
many others from him all the way back to his TEXAS GLITTER of a few
years ago. After they've orgasmed in their 3 year old comebackers,
they've tended to regress second back. PURGE's orgasmic comeback
race was a 0. Surely he regressed in the Rebel too. Right?]

Apparently... wrong.

According to a conversation I had with Jerry, SMARTY JONES went forward
in the Rebel to a stunning new top! A negative number? A negative 2? What?
Whatever the figure is, I agree with JimP when he wrote: "I would think this is
a little unusual." I think it's VERY unusual.

If SMARTY JONES ran through his 3 consecutive 0's to a new top, maybe
he's the special animal his trainer says he is, and we're seeing something
of a new ThoroGraph paradigm here.

In the final furlong of SMARTY JONES' previous mile race at Oaklawn, he
seemed to tire late as two of his lesser rivals rallied to almost overtake him.
Did this look so visually suspect to his connections, so much a cause for
concern, that they decided to inject him before the Rebel? To re-invigorate
their colt in anticipation of the rich series of forthcoming races he was
pointed towards? This is my personal take on SMARTY JONES.

In addition, with that said, reference is made to the ThoroGraphs of FUNNY
CIDE. Last year, this gelding was rolling along with a nice line of ThoroGraphs
into and including the Kentucky Derby, which he won by pairing his Wood
Memorial effort: a 1.5. Then he exploded in the Preakness to a negative 1.5!
That FUNNY CIDE won the Preakness wasn't a surprise. But that he drew
away by 10 lengths the way he did - off two weeks rest - DID surprise me.
What got into FUNNY CIDE for him to run such a gravity-defying, "enormous"
performance? [The words "enormous" and "exploded" were taken from
Jerry's pre-Belmont analysis of last June.] The enormity of that race and
the apparent enormity of SMARTY JONES' Rebel doesn't make sense
to me - within the laws of hay, oats, water and nature. In both horse's
sheets, there's something of a nice line interrupted with an incongruent
performance that disturbs its flow.

Till now, SMARTY JONES' races have had comfortable spacing. But he
now faces a grind schedule of tougher races spaced 3 weeks apart.
I see SMARTY JONES' Rebel like FUNNY CIDE's Preakness,
a too-fast inflection point marking the beginning of the end for him.
At least for a while.

My two cents.

JohnTChance