Dynever went wide for home too. He would have beat the S.A. Derby field by 6-8 lengths. Rock Hard raised his game, but Wimbledon and St. Averil ran 1:51:14 and 1:51:34 respectively. That certainly wasn't their race. Castledale won and Imperialism has a stride you just can't interrupt, so I'm not sure the results of the S.A. Derby reveal as much as one might hope. Actually I believe it further clouds the picture. The early consensus was the West Coasters weren't up to the others. Its been intersting and the sorting out has been educational.

The Derby outcome is very much in doubt. To this point it reminds me of 1974 when none of the propects rose above in the preps. It was a 23 horse field that year.

What I'm fearing right now is that Read the Footnotes or Friends Lake wins this thing on the train up. If they do...the preps next year are gonna get even more hard to guage...lol

P.S. Revisiting the Castledale issue, I'm due for a reprimand. He was by an Arc winner who was out of an Alydar mare. His dam sire won at 12 marks. I knew the dam sire part I got lost on the European part of the breeding. I think I would have pulled the trigger had I studied the pedigree pre race.

CtC



Post Edited (04-04-04 09:59)