AAA vs. Nehro

[ajkreider]

Quiz question:

What do these horse have in common?

2010 - Ice Box(2), Make music for me(4)
2009 - Mine that Bird(1)
2008 - Dennis of Cork(3)
2007 - Imawildandcracyguy(4)
2006 - Jazil(4)
2005 - Don\'t Get Mad(4)

Answer:  They were all 19th or 20th at the 3/4 call.  Honorable mentions go to Street Sense (17th) and Giacomo (18th). That\'s three of the last six Derby winners who were 17th or worse through 6F.  And that\'s with Ice Box being just short, and the other two - Barbaro and Big Brown - horses with the biggest winning margin and the fastest derby ever, respectively.  MMM, MTB, DoC, IMWCG, Jazil, Giamomo, and DGM were all 24-1 or better.

You\'re pretty spot on concerning the stretch call. Every one of the winners, bar Giacomo (6th),  was in the lead at the stretch.  And in Giacomo\'s win, Closing Argument (2nd) was the leader in the stretch.  Only Giacomo and Mine that Bird were worse than 3rd (11th,12th) at the mile call.

Conclusions? There will be at least one horse in the super who is trailing the field halfway through the race. It will probably be a longshot, and it may well be the winner.

[TGJB]

Stretch is short at OP only for mile races, where they move the finish line, as with 1 1/16th at Kee.

MJ-- while I did expect BB to bounce, nobody using sheets thought he couldn\'t win. For the other two you mention, Giacomo\'s race featured a brutal pace AND a dead rail, and MTB\'s was in the slop. Having said that, there are very few in this year\'s Derby that have anything resembling classic Derby patterns. Still, pretty damn interesting race.

[Silver Charm]

Probably more than a few Sheet Line reads in this race! Question in a year like will anything work? And that\'s not a knock on the principles of looking at lines or patterns its just that 2 race win streak as been odd!

I\'m thinking the Arch horse Popped a Big #! Now can he Pair or does he bounce? Concern I have is he looks like a horse in his PP\'s who only ran well when Wide!

[mjellish]

I agree Jerry.  Should be an interesting race to bet.  Looking forward to seeing the TG numbers, but I already have a pretty good idea of what they are going to look like.  Still curious to see what AAA and MI\'s most recent numbers are.  I\'ve spent a ton of time the last few days looking at replays, collecting info, talking to a few people and trying to make sense of it all.  Bottom line for me is this:

To me this year\'s KY Derby is really sort of becoming a lot like trying to handicap a state bred MDCLM10000 race where most if not all of the entries have already lost at least 5x at the level.  What I mean by that is that what I normally hope to see in order to pick a derby horse just isn\'t there with most of this field, and the few that sort of have \"the right stuff\"....  well, they only sort of have it and will probably be underlays based on their actual chances to win in my opinion.

So this year\'s crop is just sub-par at this point of their development.  But they don\'t have to race against history, they only have to race against each other.  So this makes for an interesting race to structure a bet.  Especially if horses like Mo, The Factor, & Jaycito run because I think they will all take money and are tosses for me.  And I can\'t believe no one has even talked publicly about entering a filly this year.

[mjellish]

Also,

For what it is worth, I would buy the early KY Derby TG\'s now and wait to see the Lexington numbers in the seminar.

[SteveB]

The only four fillies that were nominated out of 364 original nominations and 13 late nominations are Fantasy of Flight, New Hyde Park, Turbulent Descent and Violadellamora. Supplemental nominations are allowed for $200,000 but it won\'t get you in the field if 20 or more regularly nominated horses are entered.

None of the Oaks fillies could get into the Derby now even if their connections felt they had a big chance.