Orb/Watch List

[JoseOcon]

I have had Orb in my small watch list since his first race, nice comeback after a bad break.  Two races back won his maiden (vs. Revolutionary)  

Last Saturday, 01/26, he won race 5 at GP going 1 1/8.  

Waiting for his next race!

Jose

[JoseOcon]

His first race was against Violence spotting the field several lengths after the break... Just beaten a little more than a lenght by Violence

[miff]

ORB Will have a bit of catching up to do figure wise,was a bit slow at two, won first time lasix on Sat. Beyer has Itsmyluckyday in the neg-1 TG range and Shanghai Bobby like TG 1.25 on Sat.Orbs current fig only like TG 6 but its early. He has upside whereas the two mentioned above ran fast for January and still have to answer distance question.IMLDay has been heavily campaigned but is legit fast.

The real derby contenders and pretenders show up in the next two starts.

[ajkreider]

Would feel a bit better about his race had it gone quicker than Cerro\'s - at the same distance, against similar quality foes.  But Orb\'s was the slower of the two by a fair amount.

[miff]

AJ,


True, but very slow pace in the ORB race,his late internals fast and he pulled a little early. His first time start at the SPA featured a sharp late run as did his win on Sat, running style seems a bit problematic. With Shug at the helm can see this one maybe being ok down the line.

Mike

[JoseOcon]

Since it is in my watch list I am ready to play him tomorrow

Good luck to all

[drbillym]

Nice call.  Would like to see Shug win a Derby.

[Michael D.]

Hi JoseO,

Nice call there.

I remember last year you picked out one horse at the beginning of the year, off just one maiden race. Paynter was his name, and he wound up running a few big ones.

Good luck with Orb.

[covelj70]

JoseO,

really nice call on Orb.  

He still won\'t look fast on TGs because he had the rail on the first turn and he was getting 6 lbs from Violence but I really respect horses that run against a bias, even if their TG\'s aren\'t quite up to par.

I know there was a very hot pace and I assume the TG sheet will reflect as much so there will be a tendency by some to say the race fell apart for him but no one else closed from that far back all day.

Last time I argued that we shouldn\'t be impressed by a Derby prep because the figures weren\'t fast enough and the race just fell into a horses lap was Animal Kingdom who ran against a similar bias in his Spiral win as Orb did on Saturday.

At the time, I dismissed the Spiral win as the race having falling apart in AK\'s favor and the TG fig not being fast enough to win the Derby but I will not be so dismissive of those things this time.

That was one impressive race.

Nice call again

[miff]

A little surprised that the splits in the FOY are not being questioned/verified(Trakus et al).According to the official charts, ORB ran his 2nd/3rd split in roughly like 45.2 which is exceptional and Violence chased to a 22 change 3rd split. Such splits are rare,can only be run on very fast surfaces,only by fast horses.Last 5/16ths in a crawling like 33.4,the result of the intense mid race splits.A case where the whole number will tell only part of the story.

Wonder if the infamous Gulfstream teletimer gone wild again, still.

[magicnight]

Shouldn\'t we also assume that Violence ran at least part of that last 5/16ths on a bad leg?

[miff]

Magic,

Possibly, always hard to know if the horse got hurt pulling up or during the running.Violence seems like the classic case of a young horse too fast for his  current physical attributes.Not abnormal for a Pletcher TC runner going bad early.


Mike

[covelj70]

there was apparently a decent headwind coming down the stretch that the horses were running into from what I was told that impacted the closing times, obviously the TG fig will take that into account.

I heard the info about the headwind 2nd hand as I was not there myself so that could be wrong

[Silver Charm]

Jim that is a good point. Saturday was a very very windy day out of the south which could account for the fast 3/4s split and finish. Friday was also windy.  Sunday not so much. Was there any consistency in this over the course of these days.

Hope that helps!

[JoseOcon]

Thanks Michael,

I add horses to my small watch list when those are visually impressive and look powerful

When Paynter broke his maiden, the stretch run was amazing

Figures were low but I liked the horse

Good luck!

Jose