Mendelssohn or Enticed (UAE derby or Godolphin)

[JoseOcon]

Mendelsson has very good numbers & pedigree

Enticed has nice pedigree also

Like both as my top choices

[toppled]

Jose, I always look forward to your Derby opinions.

They\'re my top 2 also, but I\'m considering Good Magic as a 3rd \"A\" horse.
I\'d like to have a bunch of horses going in the Oaks/Derby DD.

In the Oaks I like both Coach Rocks & Midnight Bisou, but if the track is wet, I think Midnight Bisou towers over this field as Coach Rock\'s sire is only 10% (2/20) on wet and her siblings are 0/4 on wet tracks. Monomoy Girl is on the far outside & on wet tracks the sire is between 13% (TG) & 15% (BRIS) and has a sibling who is 0/8 on wet tracks. Meanwhile, Midnight Bisou has a 16% sire has won on a wet fast track and has 2 sibling one who won on its only wet start & one who lost on its only wet start, making the mare\'s foals 2/3 on wet tracks (the mare Diva Delight won 2x out of 4 races on wet tracks). MG\'s mare didn\'t race on wet tracks and CR\'s mare was 1/4.  
The only positive I could find in Coach Rock\'s breeding for wet is that the sire\'s TGI data has his horses .5 faster & 1% higher win % when comparing dirt to off.  All other fillies have worse TGIs between dirt & off, so CR could run just as good on slop as she does on dry dirt. She\'s already out running her sire\'s expectations.

[Beginner]

Jose / Toppled,

I haven\'t decided what to do with MEND yet, so I\'m curious why you feel strongly about him.  For me, there are a lot of question marks:

(1) the amount of development from 2 to 3;
(2) the synth to dirt jump (oftentimes followed by a bounce)- see TGJBs NY Post article from 2011 and many examples going back in this forum including Animal Kingdom, Pioneer of the Nile, etc.;
(3) from the archive, 3 year olds who run the number he ran at Meydan suggests a significant chance of an X next out (not to mention the jump from Dundalk to Meydan).
(4) the ship in to Louisville was apparently diverted to Indianapolis and he was vanned from there to Churchill (no idea what effect that will have, but it couldn\'t have been part of the plan);
(5) he\'ll be in quarantine until Thursday, so not sure how much we\'ll see him on the track.

I still have visions of Thunder Snow refusing to run after kissing mud last year.  Appreciate your thoughts. Looking forward to the seminar.

[Molesap]

Somebody made this connection before (my apologies as I do not remember the name), but Mendelssohn reminds me of a number of Derby starters who had big numbers but failed to fire on the first Saturday in May. The archives do not go back to 1995 for the Derby, but I suspect Wild Syn would be on this list as well, but my two examples should suffice.

Mendelssohn won easily on a conveyor belt like track where seemingly the only requirement to win was to get to the rail and to the front – he did so and dominated. While some question the validity of the number, if TGJB and company felt they could generate a number from that, then I am comfortable with it. So the question is, can he repeat that performance? The two horses I want to compare both won their prep races impressively under similar circumstances - Bellamy Road and Sinister Minister.

Bellamy Road went off the 5/2 favorite in 2005 after winning the Wood Memorial by a huge margin. His 120 Beyer is still the highest recorded Beyer going into the Kentucky Derby. He finished 7th after being part of an absurdly fast early pace.
TG Numbers 2YO – 5²,5²,11²
TG Numbers 3YO – 0¹,negative 5
TG Number Derby – 4¹

Sinister Minister went off at 9/1 in 2006 after winning the Blue Grass by a big margin. He earned a 116 Beyer for that. He then finished 16th in the Derby.
TG Numbers 2YO – 13
TG Numbers 3YO – 3²,15,3²,negative 4²
TG Number Derby – 11²

With my quick peruse through the archives, I did find a couple of ones that went the other way, but I do not think these are as similar as the two above.

Big Brown won the 2008 Kentucky Derby as the 2/1 favorite as he carried in Beyers of 104 and 106. He actually moved forward when he captured the Derby with a new top.
TG Numbers 2YO – 8
TG Numbers 3YO – 1,negative 3²
TG Number Derby – negative 4³

Not sure how well Orb fits into this group, but I will use him. Orb won in 2013 Derby after posting consecutive Beyers of 97 as the luke-warm favorite. Orb paired when winning the Derby.
TG Numbers 2YO – 8³,17,9³,7²
TG Numbers 3YO – 7²,1,negative 2
TG Number Derby – negative 2

I am sure I might have missed a couple of horses, but Bellamy Road and Sinister Minister seem so similar with their big jump ups coming on speed favoring tracks propelling them to big wins. This is just one of the factors that suggest to me that Mendelssohn is up against it.

[toppled]

It\'s not that I feel strongly about him, but since he\'s the fastest going in & it was his only dirt race, I don\'t know how I can know what he is.  I talked a lot more about it in another post & that answers a lot of my feelings. I hope I\'m able to link it here, rather than send you on a hunt for it: https://www.thorograph.com/phorum/read.php?1,111831,111834#msg-111834

As far as the Indy trip goes, it\'s only about 100 miles to Louisville, it\'s not like they landed at LAX & then vanned him thousands of miles.  In fact I made that trip from Indy to Louisville when I went to my only Derby in 2014 because I wanted a reasonably priced alternative to Louisville so I flew with a friend to Indy, we got in around midnight on Saturday AM crashed & took a charter bus which picked us up at a Walmart about a block from the motel.  We were no worse for wear when we got to Churchill Downs & when Commanding Curve got up for 2nd we both cashed the $400+ exacta.  Maybe for me it\'s a good omen he ended up flying into Indy & going down the highway to Louisville. But I\'d rather see Enticed win because he\'ll be a much higher price.

[Michael D.]

I thought Thunder Snow was the best 10f dirt horse in the race last year, and he probably was. but that didn\'t make it a good bet. now we have Mendelssohn coming over at less than half the price. more speed, better connections, and a perfect post certainly make him a more likely winner than TS, but is there really any value here? the # is fast, but so is the Beyer. everybody knows he\'s fast. and how much bounce risk is there? this is a really tough call.

leaning towards Audible and Hofburg at this point. the former fits well on #\'s, and the latter should move forward, and they both should benefit from the fast pace. not yet sure how much I\'ll protect with Mendel.

Vino Rosso is another tough call. the price will be there, and he\'s got the pedigree to get the 10f, but there is a lot of ground loss in that Wood number. can we expect less ground loss in the 20 deep Derby, from post 18?

[boardedup]

Just curious, why you think it\'s the perfect post for Mendelssohn?  I know Lucas talked about wanting the 14, and I get that there\'s space to either side which no doubt helps for the first few strides, but when coupled with who\'s inside him and the fact that MM, Solomini, and Noble Indy will all be coming down from the outside, it seems to me that there\'s a high potential for trouble.  

I could be completely off with this, but either way would like to hear the opposite side of the argument, thanks

[toppled]

The DRF PPs don\'t show his 106 Beyer, so the casual players, on the day there are more casual players than any other day, won\'t be seeing the number in the PPs.

[Michael D.]

boardedup Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just curious, why you think it\'s the perfect post
> for Mendelssohn?  I know Lucas talked about
> wanting the 14, and I get that there\'s space to
> either side which no doubt helps for the first few
> strides, but when coupled with who\'s inside him
> and the fact that MM, Solomini, and Noble Indy
> will all be coming down from the outside, it seems
> to me that there\'s a high potential for trouble.
>
>
> I could be completely off with this, but either
> way would like to hear the opposite side of the
> argument, thanks


board,

if MM, Solomini, and NI all gun from out there, we have a crazy pace situation and all the front-runners are probably toast, regardless of post.

what post do you think would be better for Mendel?

[Michael D.]

toppled Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The DRF PPs don\'t show his 106 Beyer, so the
> casual players, on the day there are more casual
> players than any other day, won\'t be seeing the
> number in the PPs.


I didn\'t see that. probably helps Mendel fans a bit.

[Niall]

Moore will have him break clean and hustled into a perfect ground saving trip into the first turn. He is big and fast. Watch the BC replay, if he doesnt get out of the 1 hole he is swallowed up. No, he gets a perfect position and settles nicely. Explodes turning for home, has done it repeatedly. Or he get clobbered a la Classic Empire. Stuff happens ... Cant wait to see what he looks like on track tomorrow. Irish trainer speak says \"we havent done much with him since Dubai\". Yeah right, except gallop with that Saxon beast... Please let me be right!

[boardedup]

This is just my opinion, but I\'d think the ideal spot would be 6,8-11/12 where he could slip in behind Justified (everyone in that area projects to be mid pack at best).

As to the outside horses breaking, I think Noble Indy will certainly send and MM & Solomini will want to be close/stalk the pace most likely, so I do see them coming out quick and trying to get over.  We saw what happened to Classic Empire last year and I wouldn\'t be surprised at all if the same thing happens again to some degree.

[richiebee]

The DRF Classic PPs I downloaded late Tuesday night have Mendelssohn\'s Beyer
listed all the way to the right of the running line next to the italicized
comment.

The question I have is if Mendelssohn handls the Derby field, will Aidan O wheel
him right bach in the Preakness?

[johnnym]

Any chance they send Mendy and shoot for a repeat performance on the front end?

[PapaChach]

I\'ll google it later but I\'d guess he\'d be the first horse to make the liszt of Dubai horses to go Derby/Preakness.

I\'ll show myself out...