One of the things I am always looking for this time of year while assessing the 3 year olds is their ability to do something special on the track. There are several key preps that are still to come and it\'s still a little early to make predictions, but if someone put a gun to my head I would say I have only seen two special races out of any of the 3 year olds this year. Eskendereya pressed an honest pace in the Fountain of Youth and kicked away from the field strongly in the stretch with a powerful gallop out, and Lookin at Lucky showed nice athleticism his last race when he checked sharply to avoid clipping heals yet recovered his momentum quickly to win anyway.
That being said, I don\'t think either of these horses are a lock to win in May. Lucky still hasn\'t shown that he can run fast enough to win in May. And ESK still has to show that he can repeat or move forward off his FOY effort. I also would like to see ESK show that he can switch gears and work his way through a 20 horse field, and there is the Pletcher factor to consider (i.e. stronger testing measures) which cannot possibly be overrated. So both of these horses still have some serious question marks in my opinion.
As for Rule, I thought he looked like a stand out against a weak FL Derby field. That opinion turned out to cost to me a little (for the record, my opinion that Christine Dae was going to run an off race wound up costing me A LOT when I turned out to be right about that but wrong when I played a cold 5-3 Exacta in the Bonnie Miss). True, Rule did press some strong fractions in the FL Derby. But a special horse, and I think it usually takes a special horse to win in May, should have still been able to hold off the late runners in this field. To gain some perspective, go back and watch what Big Brown did in the 2008 FL Derby after breaking from the 12 post and setting swift fractions. Watch his gallop out afterwards. Or even better, go back and watch Barbaro\'s gallop out after the FL Derby in 2006. The gallop out by Rule and the 1-2 finishers of this year\'s FL Derby was virtually non existent as they all shut down right after wire. And remember, ESK thoroughly trounced Ice Box and Pleasant Prince in the Fountain of Youth.
As for some of the other contendors. Noble\'s Promise is a nice colt for sure, but he just doesn\'t have the look of a classic distance horse. He keeps fading down the lane in all his races. As it stands right now, without significant improvement, I would say he has almost no chance at all of hitting the board in May.
None of the 3 Year olds that have been racing in CA have impressed me at all thus far, but I know that they are running on lint. There are a couple that wouldn\'t surprise me if they stepped up their game on real dirt.
Awesome Act was very impressive winning the Gotham, but there were no graded stakes winners in that field.
Dublin has the look of a big, plodding horse that is always going to come up short unless everything falls his way.
In short, overall, this seems like a weak bunch of 3 year olds to me, and the current favorites still have some pretty big question marks around them. This leaves this year\'s Derby looking pretty wide open to me with a couple of preps yet to come. We could be looking at a very good betting race in May as to my eye, any horse with a good looking sheet that seems likely to get the 1 1/4 has a strong chance to move up and hit the board with a decent trip.
