Eskendereya

[mjellish]

I think this is a better question for Jerry as I am no expert on wind.  But I do know this.  The wind at AQU is very, very tricky. It comes off the bay, wraps around the buildings and very rarely is it a straight tailwind or headwind uniform across the track.  It can acutally be different at one place on the track than on another becaues of the way it wraps around the buildings.  So you can\'t say it is always one way or another.

On the Wood day, I think you can safely say that it made for slower 2 turn races.

[Leamas57]

I thought it varied by the cube of the airspeed...

Leamas

[Silver Charm]

Guys this is 1,000 lb animal running a two turn route at Aqe.

Not Phil Mickelson doing club selection on the 12th at Akmen Corner

[JohnTChance]

Given ESKENDEREYA\'s Wood performance whereby the colt moved forward off an already-fast ThoroGraph line, I suspect the real reason for his late schedule change (allowing him more time into the race) had much to do with injection withdrawal issues. But only his hairdresser knows for sure.

[P-Dub]

Silver Charm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Guys this is 1,000 lb animal running a two turn
> route at Aqe.
>
> Not Phil Mickelson doing club selection on the
> 12th at Akmen Corner


Good one, funny.

I\'ve got Poulter at +3000 and Tiger at +400. Great weekend of racing and golf.

[TGJB]

For the record, this was not a tough figure to do-- if I had done anything else it would have been to make it faster. It\'s definitely not slower-- I had the Excelsior not going that fast and still actually made the track a point faster for the Wood.

Those who don\'t use weight have to get the relationship betwen the two races wrong. Don\'t know how Ragozin got it that far off, but what else is new.

[mjellish]

Well, I guess that\'s why we leave the figures to the people who make them.  Thanks Jerry for your thoughts on the fig.

So, now I have TG telling me one thing, Rem and Beyer telling me another, and Rag\'s telling me something completely different.  As far as sheets go, the people using TG data are going to have a much different take on ESK than the people using Rag\'s.  Should make for some interesting thoughts and dialogue.

[richiebee]

covelj70 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> guys,
>
> haven\'t been able to follow everything on the
> board for the past few days as I have the family
> in Disney.
>
> Richiebee, the little man is tearing up magic
> kingdom worse than Equestris if that\'s
> possible.


Covel:

I can just imagine the poor lad\'s disappointment when the plane landed in
Florida and not Vegas....

Probably one of the few kids down at Disney who would probably prefer to be at
Keeneland

[rayj54]

A very good friend of mine and hall of famer told me esky will not hit the board in the Derby.4 bandages,skipped the Fla Derby,shipped to NY and shipped not to Keeneland but Palm Meadows.?? lots of those.Anybody agree.

[mjellish]

Bandages meant nothing.  Pletcher had a horse who ran earlier who ran down his heals, so he put bandages on all his runners that day.  

It\'s what he doens\'t give ESK that may keep him off the board.

[Silver Charm]

Regardless Pletcher is up against it. Looks like a BIG Bounce on TG. Rags while much slower thought he was at the end of the line on his developement \"going into\" the Wood. They said toss him that day.

And now the Derby is LOADED with early speed which means Esky is gonna have to sit about 5-8 back and 3-4 wide.

[sekrah]

Agree 100%.  I don\'t think Esky will hit the board and it\'s very likely he will be up the track when the race is over IMO.  I LOL at the fawning over this horse after putting away a bunch of stiffs after tracking 49.1/113.2 in the Wood.   Besides the horse hasn\'t shown an ounce of tactical speed/quick acceleration.  The hole is open only for a second in the derby.

[Leamas57]

Tips from insiders are a dangerous thing; in the investment game, they\'re deadly. Sometimes you get the tip and most of the time you get the whole thing.

I agree that the trip will change a lot for Esky, though the bigger question is whether he bounces. I say this because any horse that goes right to the front won\'t last to win anyway; Smarty Jones and Hard Spun aren\'t in this year. So his real competitors will have the same dilemma: traffic and wider trip. He seems to be able to maintain a high cruising speed and 10 furlongs shouldn\'t matter.


So he runs from 8 or 10 lengths back and even some wide. Who else can match him under the same circumstances? He didn\'t hit the horse in the Wood. I am not 100% sold yet, but I think he has one more race in him and when you look for a better horse, you come up with issues: SC= syn-to-dirt and need the lead? Endorsement=no foundation or experience? The list goes on...

Leamas

[sekrah]

He didn\'t hit the horse because he didn\'t have to.   He was out near the front in 1:13 in change and just walked away from the stiffs he was racing.  One of the slowest paced Wood Memorials in history.  Lope the first 3/4 mile and kick clear.  And I disagree with the notion that Aqueduct was super slow that day, just because the G3 1 1/8 came home with slow fractions too.  

I keep hearing how yesterdays preps hurt LAL for some reason because X horse that LAL beat got beaten by X horse... Well who in the hell did Eskendereya beat?  Jackson Bend, Aikenite?  Awesome Act who threw a shoe at the gate and got caught wide both turns?  I know one thing... he didn\'t beat LAL in the BC Juvy when Esky got into trouble behind a wall of horses and didn\'t have the tactical speed to stay out of trouble.

He has one more race in him?  I\'m still waiting for the 1st impressive race.  The race Where he overcomes some adversity to win.   He\'s had 1 real test and he failed it in November.  

In my eyes Eskendereya will be the least impressive 2-1 shot in the Derby field over the past decade.

[ajkreider]

Well, since there haven\'t been that many 2-1 shots in the last decade how much can that count for?

The only way you can\'t think of Esk as the heavy favorite is if you discount speed figures altogether.  The whole point of figs is so you don\'t have to trust your lying eyes.

He towers over this field in that respect.