I'll tellya, I don't see all this speed that everyone is talking about. There are only 5 horses with any semblance of speed, which means no one will have to send-- and they seldom do in the Derby anyway, since they are all worried about the distance. I had an exchange with Derby 1592 about this a couple of years ago, and there is almost always a realistic pace, and speed is good in the Derby unless things get crazy, which doesn't figure to happen here-- front runners have won way out of proportion to the size of the fields.

I would also point out that Spend A Buck's "uncontested lead" was 45 and change.

I see a lot of horses wanting to sit just off or a few lengths off Lion Heart. QGR will be asked some to get position, but they run 3/8ths to a turn (about 35 seconds), so with not much speed in here they won't have to kill even him to get position. The ones in trouble are the deep closers-- with so many of them, the ones on the outside are going to be in a mess, because I don't think this field is going to string out much. I don't know what those guys were thinking in passing up inside posts, but it was a mistake.



TGJB