A Word from Our Host

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Well RIchVERMAN,

El Corredor has not had an overly noticeable stud career. However, he has gotten a couple that could run to 9.

Adieu
Wanna Runner and
Dominican. (NC Tony\'s sentimental favorite.)

Thought he had a hard luck race last, he may have needed a race and I believe is  at least in Colonel John\'s league.

What I like is his pace style and remote dam side pedigree. Though that line is pretty much devoid of mares producing runners, this guy has already proven to be an exception. I like the female side stallion influences.

I\'m also of the opinion, this guy has some brilliance (snuck some chef de race in there) to him and is gonna love dirt.

I broke the Derby trend with a gelding and they don\'t bother me in the least. Maybe this guy won\'t get all crazy with the fillies that will run.

richiebee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Chuckles_the_Clown2 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>  
> > I\'ve also got my eye on El Gato Malo and am
> very
> > interested in another colt that I don\'t want to
> > mention just yet.
>
> Clownstone: (an homage to 96 Derby winner
> Grindstone and his son 04 Belmont
> winner Birdstone):
>
> About that crazy cat El Gato Malo:
>
> 1) How have the El Corredors fared past 1 mile?
>
> 2) Very surprised that you point out a gelding who
> like Georgie Boy and Colonel John will possibly
> enter the Derby without having raced on dirt. Its
> a Brave New Derby World.

[Eight Belles]

Now I hear that Eight Belles(?), owned by Rick Porter, the man with the bowtie
who lusts for Derby glory, might run in the Ark Derby.This filly has developed
late, which is a nice way of pointing out that she was beaten at short odds in
her first 2 tries at Delaware as a 2YO. If she runs big in the Arkansas Derby
she is certainly a candidate to bounce like a Spaldeen in either the Oaks or
the Derby 3 weeks later; if I know Rick Porter, almost any kind of decent
effort in the Ark Derby will result in a Kentucky Derby start.

I think you\'re misjudging the connections.  From hearing both Porter and Jones (Jones talked about this recently on the radio and Porter posts on his website forum), neither have Derby fever.  It looks almost sure they\'re passing on the Ark Derby and going with the original plan of the Fantasy, and with that choice, they\'re not setting themselves up for the Derby.  It\'s more like the Derby will have to fall in their laps by her doing extremely well in the Fantasy and the boys continuing to show that there\'s no real monsters to require a wave of the white flag.

Porter and Jones have both entered just one horse in any of the TC races and that was Hard Spun.  That means their record\'s pretty good, and it flew in the face of all the pundits.  I\'m going to trust that if Jones puts a filly in the Derby, whether it\'s Eight Belles or Proud Spell, he really believes he could win it with her.

[Eight Belles]

After I posted, I wondered about the two men\'s record in the BC.  Off the top of my head, he\'s had two with Proud Spell finishing second in the Juvy Fillies and Hard Spun finishing second in the Classic.  I think Porter\'s only had two starters with Hard Spun\'s Classic and Round Pond\'s win in the Distaff.

Maybe it\'s the bowtie that puts you off, but these guys don\'t seem to run horses over their heads.  Obviously I\'m an admirer of their filly but part of that\'s due to the connections.  Porter is fan-friendly, and I enjoyed Jones a lot last year.  He\'s a breath of fresh air, not drugging up his horses, no steroids, a real horseman.

[Eight Belles]

Really good horses defy patterns.  These guys should know their horses and listen to what they tell them, not what figures on a piece of paper supposedly tell them, regardless of the respect we might have for the figures on a normal basis.

[richiebee]

Eight:

You seem to be not recalling Mr Porter\'s handling of Rockport Harbor
on the Derby Trail.

Maybe he learned from his mistakes.

Addendum: The story of 2 owners (Porter and the Chapmans, who owned Smarty
Jones) who had horses trained by John Servis is fascinating and ironic. The
story of course also involved Robert Camac, a mid Atlantic trainer who was
murdered by his stepson. The irony of the story (if irony is the proper word)is
that Mr Porter spent millions of dollars on auction colts seeking a Derby win;
the Chapmans basically raised SJ in their backyard and almost won the Triple
Crown.

[Wrongly]

Are you for real?  The hillbilly has no clue.  Hard Spun should have been something special at 1 mile on the turf, but thanks to his connections the world will never know.

[fkach]

A lot of people whose opinion I respect immensely think that Hard Spun was handled very well last year and was simply a cut below the best 3YOs. Other than getting that Grade 1 win at Saratoga at 7F (and enhancing the horse\'s value), I thought the season was an endless stream of strategic and training mistakes. I\'ll always think that horse had more talent and versatility than he showed on the track.

[miff]

Wrong said:

\"Are you for real? The hillbilly has no clue. Hard Spun should have been something special at 1 mile on the turf, but thanks to his connections the world will never know\"

Wrong,
...The Hillbilly doesn\'t need a clue, just a stable of fast horses. Jones gets good results( thats all that matters) but I also think he\'s clueless.


Mike

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I\'m not sure who this \"Eight Belles\" is, but to my eye he/she qualifies for \"Rookie of the Year\" and succinctly brings a level of \"game\" to the board that Mall first did. Hopefully, Eight Belles won\'t digress into pure Handicapping Tournament minutia.

Danzig over a Turkoman mare for a Turf miler? Turf miles where all the money is? You\'re not serious are you? (Later: Hard Spun did have a nice shot of Roberto in that female pedigree though) Hard Spun\'s only handicap was that he ran into a year when there was a huge presence in his division. Kinda like Hillary having to go up against Obama. When theres a bigger presence it makes it appear plans have come unglued. Though its certainly true that Hillary has gotten shrieky on her own accord. Folks forget that Hard Spun would have won the Derby with the least little bit of bad luck for Street Sense, but the red sea parted for that one.

Regarding Rockport Harbor, the torn off hoof didn\'t help, but he didn\'t seem to mature. Who knows why. It\'s certainly hard to put that one down due to bad connections. Rocky didn\'t die and he didn\'t leave the track a broken down gimp either.

 Wrongly Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Are you for real?  The hillbilly has no clue.
> Hard Spun should have been something special at 1
> mile on the turf, but thanks to his connections
> the world will never know.

[Michael D.]

fkach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A lot of people whose opinion I respect immensely
> think that Hard Spun was handled very well last
> year and was simply a cut below the best 3YOs.
> Other than getting that Grade 1 win at Saratoga at
> 7F (and enhancing the horse\'s value), I thought
> the season was an endless stream of strategic and
> training mistakes. I\'ll always think that horse
> had more talent and versatility than he showed on
> the track.


should he have been in the Bel Stks? obviously not. could he have been a champion turf miler? maybe.

but the connections danced all the big dances, made a ton of money, and have a healthy horse for stud.

how would the horse have handled the very heavy BC turf? no way to know. he loved the sloppy main.

in the end, the connections might not have been perfect, but they did ok in my book.

[fkach]

In addition to the Belmont fiasco, IMO he wasn\'t trained properly at times. HS was a horse that was tough to rate, but IMO he was sometimes trained like they were TRYING to get him to be less relaxed and more speeed crazy. That made no sense to me when they were trying to stretch him out and he had demonstrated early on that he could relax a bit.

Going for the Grade 1 sprint at Saratoga made a lot of business sense given that they had already probably blown one or two chances to get a Grade 1, but IMO it didn\'t make much sense to do that if you were also aiming for the Classic. I also didn\'t like the rider change fiasco.

IMO he would have had a better chance to win a couple of other races if he was trained properly in the Spring, given a vacation after the Preakness, and then aimed for the Haskell. I don\'t even have an opinion on turf.

The whole campaign gave me a sense of nothing being planned and lots of mistakes being made.

I guess where I disagree with a lot of people is that I give credit to the horse for coming out of that campaign with a ton of money, a Grade 1, etc... despite the training and helter skelter campaign. Like I said though, people that I respect ALL disagree with me. ;-)

[Eight Belles]

richiebee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Eight:
>
> You seem to be not recalling Mr Porter\'s handling
> of Rockport Harbor
> on the Derby Trail.
>
> Maybe he learned from his mistakes.
>
> Addendum: The story of 2 owners (Porter and the
> Chapmans, who owned Smarty
> Jones) who had horses trained by John Servis is
> fascinating and ironic. The
> story of course also involved Robert Camac, a mid
> Atlantic trainer who was
> murdered by his stepson. The irony of the story
> (if irony is the proper word)is
> that Mr Porter spent millions of dollars on
> auction colts seeking a Derby win;
> the Chapmans basically raised SJ in their backyard
> and almost won the Triple
> Crown.


And Smarty Jones was basically crippled in the effort.

Don\'t know what you\'re talking about regarding Rockport Harbor.  Porter followed the advice of his trainer and when he didn\'t do well in what would\'ve been his final prep for the Derby, he bypassed the Derby.  If he\'d gone on ahead to the Derby I\'d see your point, but considering he didn\'t, I don\'t.

[richiebee]

Ocho Campanas:

I do not know if Smarty Jones was crippled; some would say he was a competent
ride away from the Triple Crown, but that was not my opinion.

I will not pursue this any more. This is old news. If you wish to pursue the
matter, use the excellent TG search function. If you search \"Rockport Harbor\"
and or \"Preakness\", you will see that I noted that RH was being trained too
aggressively through his hoof injury, which I believe he sustained in the
Remsen at Aqueduct. (You can probably even search the words \"No hoof, no
horse\"). I noted at the time that RH could have conceivably been
taken out of training (or trained less aggressively) and pointed for the
Preakness or even one of the lesser derbies.

I have nothing against Mr. Porter. I just use him and his handling of RH as
another example of (A)too much emphasis being placed on the Ky Derby resulting
in (B) young horses being sacrificed (too strong a word, I know) resulting in
(C) premature retirement of runners which (D)eventually hurts the racing game.

If you really want to go a few more rounds on this (I do not), use the PTP
message function; the Board should now be dedicated to the coronation of Big
Brown, the current fastest horse in the world ever. Hell, he went 3 seconds
faster than a field of \"graded stake\" fillies, the best of whom was NW3x and
3 of whom were NW2LT.

[jbelfior]

TGJB:

Wouldn\'t be a 3yo colt by Victory Gallop, would it?  A long striding grinder who has not shown much (yet!) as a 3yo, but certainly has a 2yo resume that made him a top contender in January.



Good Luck,
Joe B.