Yesterday's preps

[FrankD.]

What did we learn from yesterday\'s 2 preps?

IMHO the Risen Star told us nothing, a roughly run race with a lot of early trouble for the main contenders. A race that collapsed in the stretch off a slow pace on a tiring race track. I don\'t follow Fairgrounds on a regular basis but with 2 days of heavy rain before the race; I feel they were very liberal calling it a fast track.

Congrats to Keith Desormeaux winning a big one for one of the first families of Cajun race trackers.

Now the FOY showed us something; the top 2 had very healthy developing patterns coming into the race and I\'m sure their graphs continue south. Violence spotting weight, being close to a very hot pace on the Gulfstream speedway and being challenged for the first time showed a lot. Orb was flying at the end; granted he had a target and pace set up his way but still a very impressive run and I\'m sure Shug continues moving him forward without squeezing the lemon dry.

The first 2 look very real and legitimate to me for the first Saturday in May; nothing else that ran in either race yesterday showed me much.

Good luck,

Frank D.

[toppled]

I just finished looking at the FOY in the Redboard Room & I found it very surprising how slow the field was going into the race.  

In order for any of the FOY horses to get anywhere near a Kentucky Derby winning figure, they\'re going to have to show a lot of development in a short time.  On just pure numbers, they have a long way to go.

Since the Risen Star was the ROW, the numbers were already up yesterday and they came into the race a lot faster than the group down in Florida.  The winner looked like a rank outsider in that field that had at least 5 horses with tops much faster than the FOY group.  

My gut reaction to the races and numbers is that we didn\'t see the Derby winner yesterday.

[miff]

Live Lively,3yr old filly,ran just about as fast as Orb an hour before. Fast pace on fast surface in FOY caused a pedestrian last 5/16ths,Castellano may have moved into that 1.08+ split a bit early but had no real excuse off a perfect trip.Orb gets a top off great set up in front of him but does not run his best unless launching outside, a possible problem going forward.

Risen Star field horrific,winner a joke,dirt surface very slow.Highly touted Derby prospect and favorite,Normandy Invasion,empty!

Mike

[Silver Charm]

I thought the Rachel Alexandra winning physically looked good. Ran green and is still developing.

Frank maybe you have the right explanation on the Risen Star. The tiring drying out traxk. I thought when Oxbow moved cleared he was a winner maybe 2nd at worst. Horses he had put away came back to beat him and I was wondering....what the heck happened.

I have no complaints on a great day of racing like yesterday. Very few winners for me but the assessment evaluation elimination process starts anew this time of the year xome Monday and that is a big part.of the fun!!

[miff]

Beyer gave Orb a 97 and I\'ve Struck A Nerve 95.... both a little generous.

[BitPlayer]

Silver Charm -

I think you\'re being a little hard on Oxbow.  He was 5 wide through the first turn, 2-3 wide through the second, gave weight to the entire field, and was beaten only half a length for all the money.  He has to get the best figure in the race by a healthy margin.

His problem is that he only picked up 5 points for the effort, may have set himself up for a bounce, and probably needs to run 1-2 to make the field if he only runs once more before the Derby.  It will interesting to see how Lukas manages him.  Will he opt for the new school approach of 5 weeks into the LA Derby, then 5 weeks to Louisville, or go for something more old school?

[TreadHead]

I must have been watching a different race, because I don\'t understand why people are saying Normandy Invasion was a no-show.  Yes, he broke terribly and raced greenly in the early part of the stretch, but he is getting to the front 4 at the wire and catches them just a few jumps after, and this is a no-show effort?

Given he wasn\'t much more than a length behind Oxbow and race 5 wide then 6 wide, I\'m pretty sure it is him and not Oxbow that gets the lowest figure, but I guess we will see.  

When you look at the figures of the horses that ran well in the Mineshaft and then compare the time/trip to what happened in the Risen Star, it is quite possible to expect Oxbow and NormandyInvasion to have run something in the 0-2 range, which overall would make this a VERY strong Derby prep race full of promising horses.  Now, granted the track probably sped up a bit between the two races so that might be a bit optimistic, but that is my guess.

[Silver Charm]

So what you are saying is going into yesterday he was \"Last 4 In\" and now he is a \"First 4 Out\".

Agreed he probably needs points. Was nipped for.several more yesterday and these Final Preps are going.to be like Elite 8 games....which resemble a Brawl to get.to the Final Four....or Derby Starting Gate!!

[BitPlayer]

TreadHead -

I agree with you that Normandy Invasion didn\'t run that badly.  Not only did the incidents at the start cost him ground, but they may have made him a little rank early. That may have been why Lezcano, after moving him to the inside after the trouble, let him drift back outside through the first turn.

As for the fig, he doesn\'t get credit for the trouble in the fig, and I think you\'re overstating how wide he was through the turns.  He fanned wide into the stretch, but was only about 3 wide through the second turn.  Of course, I\'ve only seen a pan shot.  I suppose a head-on shot might give me a different view.

[TreadHead]

I agree the first turn is pretty tough to assess between Oxbow and NI, and Oxbow definitely had a wide run there, but NI is REALLY wide the back part of that turn and that is probably a wash.  The second turn there is no possible way you can convince me that NI didn\'t travel at least 2 paths worse than Oxbow there, which is going to put their figures darn near even, if not NIs being better.  

NI is running outward on each of those turns, which definitely costs him a lot of ground, whereas Oxbow is improving his position on each of those turns.

[TreadHead]

per Jay Privman reporting on DRF, Violence suffered a fractured sesamoid but does not require surgery.

Not surprising after seeing the BRIS pace figures, he ran 104 and 121 the first 2 segments, 121 is a figure I\'m not sure I\'ve ever seen from them.

[kekomi]

FrankD. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What did we learn from yesterday\'s 2 preps?
>
>
> Now the FOY showed us something;
>
> The first 2 look very real and legitimate to me
> for the first Saturday in May; nothing else that
> ran in either race yesterday showed me much.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Frank D.

i\'ve seen a lot of people around the web saying that the foy wasn\'t that fast yesterday, but personally i don\'t see how they\'re coming to that conclusion.


everyone\'s saying the pace collapsed, but decelerating doesn\'t automatically = collapsing. hansen\'s speed collapsed in the final 1/4 of the holy bull last year, but majestic hussar\'s speed, in his first route race, can\'t really be said to have collapsed, at least not tragically so. he still managed fairly respectable closing fractions, given he ran 23.1, 45.4, 1:08.8 for the first six furlongs: 1:36.8 and 1:43.8 would amount to a solid wining effort at most tracks on most days.

gulfstream wasn\'t santa anita fast yesterday, it was about par for the track. no other 6f was run under 1:10 all day, and the fastest miles were tied at 1:35.3 by orb and live lively. plus there was a pretty brisk head wind the horses were running into in the stretch.

orb ran 24.1, 46.5, 1:09.7, 1:35.3 and 1:42.2 (same times for 8f and 8.5f as the devona dale winning filly, who ran slower early, than he did); and he was the only winner to come from further back than 2nd all day.

his final 1/4 was about the same as algorithms\'s final quarter in the holy bull last year (who ran much slower internal fractions than orb). and yeah, i know you can\'t compare raw speeds--but a final 1/4 just under 26 seconds after running the half in 46.5, seems a little bit more justifiable than closing just under 26 after running a 48 second half.

even the horse that finished dead last, elmutahid (running without lasix), ran 23.5, 45.9, and 1:10 flat for the first 6f--while the winning filly the race before (the devona dale) only ran 1:10.2 for 6f. given that he was eased in the stretch when it became clear he wasn\'t going to factor at all, his final fractions, weren\'t that embarrassing, all things considered: 1:38.2 and 1:45.6.

i\'m not saying that any of these horses are the next coming of dr. fager, or will win the ky derby, let alone the triple crown, i\'m not even particularly partial to any of them--i\'m just not understanding the widespread denounciation of a race that was at least a solid effort, if not a strong effort, from all of the runners.

[kekomi]

that\'s sad news--the foy is a mean race, it takes out a lot of horses every year

[jimbo66]

Treadhead,

You are a much more forgiving man than I am if you liked or even tolerated the race Normandy Invasion ran.

I can\'t completely toss a horse who ran as fast as he did last year, off of one bad race, but I am putting a pencil \"toss\" mark on him.  

I thought his race was horrific, in a horse racing sense, although I concede his TG fig won\'t reflect that.  Yes, he lost ground on both turns and he finished amongst 7 horses or so at the finish, so his ground loss loaded figure will be OK (most likely).  However, that figure doesn\'t reflect that the ground loss was self-induced, with another bad start.  The horse has no tactical speed for positioning and no \"quick\" in him, or at least didn\'t show it at any time to me on Saturday.  He grinded away wide, amongst a bunch of horses who all finished together.  7 horses that close at the wire is almost an automatic sign of a bad race.  Not to mention that several of them that finished ahead of him were \"confirmed slugs\".  I thought it was an absolutely AWFUL and HORRIFIC race, for any horse that competed in it and would not bet any of them back against any real competition.  

I know the Beyer figures are similar, but compare the race at Fairgrounds to the race at Gulfstream and it is pretty clear to me which is better.  At Gulf, they cut out a 1:08 and change 3/4 mile split, on a track where salty high level claimers went 1:11 for a final time.  Not to mention the vicious internal splits run within the race.  All signs of a quality race.  Unfortunately, one of the two horses who ran well in the race won\'t be racing again any time soon (if at all).  But the Gulf race was a \"real race\" in my mind.  

No interest for me in any of the Fairgrounds horse at all.  (which likely just put at least 2 of them into the Superfecta in the Derby!)

Jim

[TreadHead]

Some fair points Jimbo, but some not-so-fair ones as well.  I\'m not making any excuses for how he ran, he was green, rank, and clearly not on his game.  This to me says there is easy room for improvement in his next start.  The million dollar question then becomes, did he finish so close to the others because it was bad field

I think the Gulfstream comparisons are ridiculous.  If we are talking about 10F horses for May, you can\'t possibly tell me there was anything in that race that was inspiring.  Lost in the discussion is the fact that Orb ran a 22 second early/middle spilt as well and was crawling home himself, just at a slightly better rate than (an injured) Violence was.  If this is how he reacts to early speed, he won\'t stand a chance against some of these better horses at 10F.

The TG folks can tell us about the track variants if they like, but I\'m also assuming that the surfaces were very different, with FG likely being very tiring as it dried out from a lot of moisture not only during the week, but earlier that day.  Gulfstream was an obvious tarmac, and a conveyor belt.  Comparing times from these two places seems meaningless.

Now, I\'m still not convinced NormandyInv is a 10F either based on the breeding, but if you combine some of the early speed from Gulfstream (and what we are going to likely see from Oaklawn and SantaAnita horses) with some of the middle-mover/plodders we saw in the Risen Star, I\'m not minding his grinding style at all.  He seemed ready to dispatch that field if the race were just a bit longer, and with most of the other speed horses I\'ve seen so far looking like they may have trouble at 9F, let alone 10F, I\'m definitely keeping NormandyInv on my list for another look when they go 9F next out.

EDIT - Here is an in-depth look at the FOY and Gulfstream track configuration, interesting reading:  http://www.followhorseracing.com/en/the-latest/blogs/2013/02/25/inside-the-trip-turns-and-times/