Desormeaux

[touchgold]

so they knew it was going to rain?

[FrankD.]

WTF does knowing if it was going to rain have to do with anything?

The horse paired 2\'s breaking through his 2 year old wet track tops in his first 2 starts of the year. The horse had every right to move forward and his 2\'s are just as fast as Nyquist\'s sheet. He is a Curlin who improve 5 points from 2-3 and get better as they go along.

This wasn\'t a 40/1 shot coming from obscurity he is a well thought of graded stakes winner who was bet in his previous efforts.

[ajkreider]

They showed replays of her last two, and it may be the former I was thinking of as far as lacking space.  I think they actually said something like:

\"The jock is not asking her to run at all.  He doesn\'t even set her down until right at the wire, and then she goes right by them\".

[TGJB]

Okay, I\'ll bite. What the hell was the HOF rider doing whipping the crap out of the horse when he was way in front in the stretch (after he had PASSED the whole field, so he didn\'t have to worry about someone closing on him)?

Good news is, he doesn\'t have any big races coming up...

[Flighted Iron]

Plausible reason for extra whips in the lane. Ensuring he goes for a new top. Don\'t have stats in front of me, but fairly certain more pairs run than new tops in the derby.

[RICH]

yeah but a possible 3 point top coupled with the fact that he loved that track could be problematic assuming someone else has a decent pattern.

[FrankD.]

No great secret This horse loves the off going. One could reasonably interpret his fig was aided by the slop. One can also assume via the visual the run was one of a conditioned horse that most likely would have won the race on any surface this day. We saw the same run in the San Felipe it just started a little earlier and could not be sustained.

If the fig came up a 1 or a 1/2 you would be looking at one of the best derby sheets you ever saw?

[mjellish]

Agreed Frank.  He was fast at 2 and is a Curlin.  Lots of sentiment that he is a better 1 turn horse, probably based on Watchmaker\'s drf comments.  I dunno if i agree with those or not, to be honest.  My gut tells me he may be right. But given the connections this one is a bit of an enigma to me, which is why i posted the stuff i did about the other runner.  Assuming no hiccups in his training from here on out, at this point i can only say:

I do think he likes the slop.

I do think he will be one of the favorites in the KY Derby.

I do think the SA Derby race shape and surfaced greatly favored him and his race looked better than it was.

And I do think if TGJB has his SA derby as a relatively small forward move to a new top his sheet will look pretty nice.

One more thing.  That Tampa track is a tricky track.  Lots of horses don\'t ship in there and run very well for whatever reason. So curious how people will evaluate Brody\'s Cause sheet.

[RICH]

the number is out and your right, you really can\'t get a better sheet than that