Essentially, this is a post I made "post" San Felipe and then erased because it appeared I was past posting.

Everything I say has to be weighed with your use of T-Graph. I don't have Action This Day T-Graph Past Performances. But I've watched him run and he has been an off pace horse but the interesting thing is that he doesn't really have that late burst that the good off pace horses have. He really appears to be the traditional "grinder". That said, he did try to run closer to the pace last and everyone is aware of the injury. Its hard for an ex football player (not pro) to put much stock in relatively minor injuries taking away performance. Especially the laceration and blood kind. You don't even feel those things in the heat of the excitement. If he'd broken a bone or done damage to a tendon you could understand how it might impact performance. Action This Day is hard to like, especially on the track. Its possible he could clunk up, but its probably wise to keep in mind most of the good horses skipped the Breeders Cup Juvenile (For all the good it did them) and beating Chapel Royal in that race doesnt look like much of an accomplishment.

Not that this is really an insight

lol

You look at Hasslefree and as TGJB implied in his Ark Derby rundown, you kinda scratch your head. Lukas was running this horse in April as a two year old, busting for 4 and 5 furlong races. (I have big 4.5 furlong numbers. I'm ignoring them, I know T-Graph doesn't even make numbers for those races) Every time he ran into a horse that could hoof it, he caved. Chapel Royal, Deputy Storm, Heckle, Silver Wagon. Then Lukas puts him away for MONTHS and brings him back to two turns in heavyweight stakes company. He's gonna get the lead here, especially with a change in Tactics from Purge. Pletcher knows his old boss and may leave it to Smarty to shadow Hasslefree. Lukas has said "Hasslefree is a good horse". But even if you were prone to listen to trainers, is Lukas one that would know? Generally, Lukas's best show some ability somewhere and you take the 15 or 25-1 because its value. Heck, Proud Citizen won the Lexington. What has this horse done to make anyone think he could pull this off, yet who isn't worried?

Three of Lukas's Derby winners are in this link. If you view it you'll see he ran both Grindstone and Charismatic early and short. Not as early and short as Hasslefree, but Hasslefree showed more inclination to win sprinting. To a certain extent he's in that mold. Still the others showed life and Grindstone was always bet like a good thing.

http://www.drf.com/tc/trail/2004/derbywinners.pdf

I know JoeB was confident the Lanes End would be Hasslefrees coming out party.

Interesting

CtC



Post Edited (04-10-04 11:33)