Warning: This post has a lot of supposition....
It is not a surprise to me that on today\'s dry track, Pioneer of the Nile seemed to work less sharply than last week, while Chocolate Candy moved up quite a bit from last week. Last week\'s workout for those horses (and also for I Want Revenuge) were over a sloppy track. There has been very loose correlation between sloppy tracks/turf/synthetic (obviously the correlation between turf and synthetic is more than loose, but I am referring to sloppy track form). Some of us believe that POTN is a turf/synthetic horse and he worked very sharply in the slop, but put out today what is a very slow move for a Bob Baffert horse. If you check Baffert\'s MO, he works his horses often and hard. Chocoloate Candy kind of struggled last week in the slop and now today ran a very quick 59 and galloped out well on the dry track. For those of us that believe that Chocolate Candy will move up on a dirt track, today\'s workout should bolster confidence.
Tomorrow, assuming good weather, I would expect we will see a very sharp workout from I WAnt Revenge, which will be very different from last week\'s \"so so\" workout over the sloppy track. I believe he has confirmed his affinity for a dry dirt track and I believe we will see that tomorrow.
Tough call on Friesan Fire. I am never right on this guy Jones. He is following the Hard Spun prep plan with Friesan Fire. The workout was obviously very sharp, but by all accounts he was wiped out at the end of it and didn\'t gallop out at all. My memroy says I remember reading similar comments about Hard Spun, which made me throw that horse out. I will say that if the track comes up sloppy on Derby day, I believe Friesan Fire moves up quite a bit (to state the obvious) and maybe becomes the horse to beat. However, for now, I think he gets left off my tickets on a dry track, as he has one number that is competitive here, and it was over a sloppy track. At single digit odds, he is underlaid IMHO.
