The Belmont by the sheets

[miff]

Shak and AK did all the running in the Preakness, the rest not too much. More juice out of those two than the others.Shak had the more gut wrenching trip, sent, contested and running all the way to the wire.Have to think Shak would be more prone to bounce than AK but thats pure speculation. Recuperative capability of every horse different.


Mike

[jett]

I remember Chris McCarron being especially self critical of his ride on Alysheba that day.I think he almost ran over/into Gone West.--Jett

[TGJB]

I\'ll tell you what, I\'ve been looking at sheets for past Belmonts and writing this one up, and I\'ve moved almost 180 degrees away from my original position. Not that I think it\'s a great betting race, I don\'t-- but I think it\'s a chaos race. The favorites are fastest, but man, I\'m not sure anybody\'s going to run well. Well, almost anybody...

Don\'t think the race is going in a big figure, certainly don\'t think multiple horses will run big.

[albany]

Perret got the jump on him with Bet Twice. McCarron then ran his horse into a blind switch.

[richiebee]

alm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Monzon ran so badly, from my point of
> view, in his prep...against a group that was not
> particulary strong (OK, but not strong) that I
> place him in my Sway Away POS Award Winning
> category.  If you think he can bump up fourth go
> for it.  I think his entry is based on getting a
> program souvenier for his connections, which may
> not even have another one this good for the next
> 10 years.

The owners of Monzon, Sagamore Farm (now operated by Kevin Plank,
President of Under Armour), got a decent souvenir last November at
CD.

[jimbo66]

TGJB,

CAn you delete all the gratuitous Belmont talk?  Alm decided that if Motion shows up the race is over, so I don\'t know what the rest of us jerks are talking about...

[covelj70]

JB,

This was the main point of my original post on the Belmont that you yelled at me about.  The Belmont is often (not always) chaos theory.  It\'s seldom won by the fastest horse going in because of the distance and/or lack of spacing between races often means the fastest horse isn\'t going to run their number.

If the spacing and distance factors weren\'t such a big issue, we would have had alot more triple crown winners since many have won the first 2 legs.

[TGJB]

There\'s a difference between that and saying sheets and/or sheets theory don\'t apply. It\'s because of sheets theory that I view things this way. If you mean it\'s not just about who\'s fast, I agree-- but that\'s the difference between sheets theory and just using speed figures.

[alm]

As a horse owner myself I can assure you that that only emboldened them.  My point is my point...I could name owner after owner, breeder after breeder and lots of trainers who do the same thing only to result in abject failure.  The taste of glory only builds the taste for glory.

Hey, maybe you guys are right and an exceptionally slow horse will bump up for fourth.  Seriously, I hope you win...I really do.

[alm]

Hey, I only said that to be a wise guy, but after reading all of this, I am beginning to really like the horse.

[what about bob]

I see zero value betting AK at 2/1 or 5/2.  Reportedly a tired horse coming out of the Preakness, not finishing his feed the next day.  While this is not completely unusual, it is never a good sign.  Motion says he wants the horse closer to the pace and I think the 47 and change workout was intended to do that.  Put a fork in him at the head of the stretch as he\'ll have nothing left for the drive.  Shak runs back to the Derby and tires late.  I like Nehro to run big and hope to get a price horse to run behind him.

[alm]

I also don\'t see AK as a good bet...but I didn\'t see where Motion said that about the workout...his strategy is the right strategy at Belmont, that is laying close...can\'t do that or much else with a tired horse however.  We will see.

[jimbo66]

Alm,

There are no horses in this triple crown series that qualify as anything close to \"special\" or \"very fast\".  Animal Kingdom, to date, is the best, and his Derby was very good.  That said, if he was that good, he should have went by Shackleford in the Preakness.  He didn\'t and the trip was fine.  (slow early horses often spot lengths).

Since there are no particularly fast horses, the statement about an \"exceptionally slow\" horse filling out the super doesn\'t make sense.  Relative to the horses that will be bet on Saturday, there are only a couple of horses that are \"exceptionally slow\" and they aren\'t the ones being discussed in this thread.  When you factor in that there are some legitimate reasons why the top ones might not fire their best shots on Saturday, this narrows the gap even further,  and you are left with what it seems many of us are interpreting as a wide open or chaotic race.  Horses like Santiva,Master of Hounds, Brilliant Speed, Stay Thirsty, etc. are not \"exceptionally slow\" in this race, whether you like them or not is your own prerogative.

[alm]

In this string of comments I was referring specifically to Stay Thirsty and Monzon.  I dislike their chances as much as I disliked Sway Away\'s chances in the Preakness, only to be \'talked\' into betting that one by a lot of Preakness posts that were similar to those above about ST and Mon.  The really sad part and I accept full responsbility was the fact I threw out Shackleford to include Sway Away on several of my tickets.  My bad.

[jimbo66]

Alm,

You could very well be right about Monzon and Stay Thirsty.  They likely don\'t get a sniff.  But at 30-1 on Monzon and 20-1 on Stay Thirsty, those of us that like him are using the old \"risk/reward\" equation, certainly not calling them the most likely horses to run well.

As for Sway Away, yep, he was awful in the Preakness.  I liked and used him.  And Was wrong.  That happens a lot in this game, unfortunately.