It\'s pretty tough to know what to do with this race other than dismiss it. To Jimbo\'s and other\'s dismay, I\'ve been in favor of excusing a long list of \"excuse\" horses from FG this winter, and so far they have all come back to run really well when given a chance to actually run (hint, look for Sunbean\'s next start). And I\'m definitely providing \"excuses\" for the slow Wood time.
But yesterday\'s race, aside from the track being slower than normal, cannot really excuse a performance THAT slow. Unlike the Wood, there was no wind messing with the fractions and the coming home time was much slower despite that advantage. The Beyer in the 80s is ridiculous, however, given the lost ground. But this does not excuse the 39+ final 3F and anyone trying to compare this to the Wood is using apples and oranges.
A similar head scratcher is people like Beyer and BRIS giving similar figures for the Bluegrass. I\'m not saying it was that much better or a great race, but it was nearly 2 seconds better and the winner closed in just over 37 sec while going 8 wide, which might actually be more like 36.5 sec running straight line, so I would have expected marginally better figures. But I guess if you aren\'t factoring in ground loss in your figures, the race is certainly less impressive.
Toughest call is to know what to do with Oxbow, as this was clearly a bounce off the 1 unless we hear of some other issue. Is this another case of a Lukas horse being run into the ground, and this time too early before the Derby? I\'m going to have nightmares about dismissing him and them him moving back to that 1 and getting into the trifecta.
