I think what people may not be considering was the pace of the Southwest Stakes. It was very lively and Smarty Jones essentially ran hard on it and though he was caught at the wire he responded late and would not let those horses go by, granted they were an El Prado and a Smoke Glacken.

A negative can blow a horse out of the water. I think its pretty clear Read the Footnotes crashed as a result of one. But his negative was earned in the hardest way. Smarty looked like he had something left. Granted again, the way an effort looks doesn't mean it didn't turn the horse back.

He left some promising horses in his wake and he was giving them weight. It was a remarkable effort. Its gonna be a question of bounce and pedigree and his next race should be the acid test to determine just how big of a numbers cruncher his heart is. The game however is full of horses that have overcome questionable pedigree to run a distance of ground.

If he wins two more in a row he will equal something Seattle Slew did and he will have over 5 Million in the bank. Slew was the only undefeated Derby winner was he not?

CtC


JohnTChance wrote:

> > 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
>
>