No Lookin For Lucky

[Silver Charm]

Adding blinkers to this talented youth. Trainer planning only two starts this spring with all sorts of \"No horse has ever won the Derby with only.....\" types drawing a line through his name.

The Derby each year is becoming a tougher and tougher read with fewer and fewer two year old starts. This one had several at two but is gonna only start twice in six months and then load in the gate on Derby Day.

There is very little margin of error here. If he and the connections can make it all work then this is one Derby winner who will have lived up to his name........

[SoCalMan2]

Silver Charm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Adding blinkers to this talented youth. Trainer
> planning only two starts this spring with all
> sorts of \"No horse has ever won the Derby with
> only.....\" types drawing a line through his name.
>
> The Derby each year is becoming a tougher and
> tougher read with fewer and fewer two year old
> starts. This one had several at two but is gonna
> only start twice in six months and then load in
> the gate on Derby Day.
>
> There is very little margin of error here. If he
> and the connections can make it all work then this
> is one Derby winner who will have lived up to his
> name........


Not sure what your point is.  Do you think Baffert is prepping him wrong?  To me,  Baffert is handling this colt very very well. I think it was a pretty solid 2 year old campaign.  More than \"several\" starts at 2 in my book.  What would you do differently if you were managing this colt?

[Silver Charm]

SoCal Man how do you count several? 3-4 or 5-6??

Two Preps and a Managed Top. Have we not been down that road before?

I believe when he ran the horse in the Hlly Futurity he decided then he was only going to run him twice. I think he very much knows what he is doing but this is a delicate process, like with any early favored Derby prospect, and he has been down this road before with Point Given.

And how did that one turn out..........

[Dana666]

Personally, I wouldn\'t be one to argue or question Baffert\'s handling of a 3 year old. He\'s been down this road before, ya know? Years ago there used to be a real formula for Triple Crown success (especially the Derby), but I don\'t think those old rules really matter much anymore. Didn\'t Big Brown have only 2 preps or am I mistaken? It\'s way too early for me to even think of the Derby; in fact, it has become, for me, in recent years a lot like the Breeder\'s Cup: Much ado about nothing particularly important in the larger scheme of things. Think about how many really bad horses win the derby for all kinds of weird reasons - could you ever imagine Mine That Bird winning a derby? His victory really validates the meaninglessness of the race. There are other examples of mediocre (at best) horses who for some reason step up on that strange day - Giacomo is another that comes to mind - you could probably think of many more. Truth be told it is a race in which you probably lose a lot of money that is in no way worth all the hype. The Derby (if I were writing this in the Thoroughbred Times, I\'d have to include the phrase \'Presented By Yum Brands\' every time I say the words Kentucky Derby) is a curio race; it hearkens back to a past age in racing when horses were bred, trained and raced far differently than they are today. It is a strange race to focus so much emphasis on by today\'s standards. The entire triple crown series really flies in the face of any sane campaign for a thoroughbred in this day and time; honestly, why do we really care so much???