While all that may be true Jimbo, your track record for successful opinions this spring (and others) hasn\'t exactly been stellar outside of this one example. We don\'t need to bore others on this board by rehashing your opinions on any of the Louisiana horses this spring, or the whole \"never passed horses in the stretch\" discussion, but for you to make this post about the one time you were right without acknowledging the many things you were wrong about this spring or other springs is pretty laughable.
I don\'t ever remember being asked to provide a formal selection prior to the race, and while I clearly like Verrazano a lot and continue to like him a lot going forward, I am not so stubborn as to not be able to adjust my views when I hear all the training reports and other backside feedback closer to the race. I had Orb and Verrazano as my only \"A\" horses in the race, and like many others had (in order) Revolutionary, Normandy Invasion, IMLD, and Overanalyze as by \"B\" horses.
You are welcome to read the pre-race analysis I put together every year for a large group of friends, which is largely based on Thorograph figures and knowledge gained from reading this board over the last 15 years, but some other things as well. Send me a DM if you are interested. These were the comments I made about Orb and Verrazano in that writeup.
KEY WIN CONTENDERS
16 Orb
I had to promote this horse into the first tier after mud came into the picture and after reading all the reports of how well he has been training at Churchill Downs. His pedigree is loaded with ability to handle mud and is also reasonably suited for the extra distance here, at least compared to most of the other horses. There are some concerns about his large jump-up in performance figures early this spring, which sometimes have a tendency to knock horses out for a bit.
But all indications based on training are that he is in as good a shape as he’s ever been, and if he can duplicate his Florida numbers from this spring, he will be right there at the end. The fact that he’s never run a big number outside of Gulfstream Park is another potential negative, which is why I had given an edge to Verrazano off his winning races at 3 different tracks already, before seeing Verrazano’s training. After seeing how hot Orb’s jockey, Joel Rosario, has been riding lately, I had to make the full switch over to making Orb a top co-contender.
Some people incorrectly label this horse a closer, he does not drop to the back of the field and close like Normandy Invasion or Java’s War. He is a pace presser and actually has run his fastest splits in the earlier part of a route race on more than one occasion, it is simply an optical illusion when the front-end speed dies off and he is still moving at a good enough rate to go by them. This pressing style means the possibility for traffic problems is a bit higher than an earlier horse like Verrazano, but he is more likely to work out a good trip than some of the dead closers, which makes him a relative positive compared to those horses as well. As soon as the weather forecast made it appear that slop or mud is a virtual certainty and after Verrazano galloped less than ideally (showing signs of rankness and being washed out), I decided that leaving Orb as my top choice was the right thing to do.
14 Verrazano
I was ready to key this horse as my only win contender until the possibility of rain entered the forecast. On a fast, dry track, I didn’t think there is any beating this horse. He has a huge Thorograph figure he ran several months ago and his connections have done a great job of keeping him wrapped up since then and not doing too much. He did end up winning his other Derby prep races in spite of that, but his last 2 were not nearly as impressive as a race he ran in February. If he duplicates his race from February he is a clear winner. He has everything I’m looking for in a running style and pedigree, abundant tactical speed and plenty of stamina on the female side.
He is a very relaxed horse, getting to top speed very easily and is extremely physically imposing. This leads me to believe that he will be able to last longer than some of the smaller horses under tiring/long distance conditions. With his tactical speed, he should not get caught up in any of the traffic issues that many of the horses further back are likely to encounter, and this is a huge plus in this field full of so many closers. I would have thought he is a clear winner here under normal circumstances.
But after turning in some nice workouts here last week, he has shown up somewhat agitated and overly sweaty (a.k.a washed out) during his gallops this week, and that is out of character for this horse. While the trainer doesn’t seem too concerned, I’m wondering if he might be a step off his best, and sometimes you have to let real-world appearance override what you see on paper. Another potential negative in his pedigree is ability to handle mud. While his pedigree isn’t necessarily bad for it, it isn’t that great either and there are many others that should definitely like it. Several other people might try to give you other negatives on this horse, like they won’t think he can get the distance, he keeps winning races by a shorter margin, but those are all red herring excuses. Though I’m not going to completely shift my opinion on him due to the questionable appearance, I learned my lesson last year and if things to not appear to be 100% going into the race, it is time to call an audible and also consider the best looking horse. I’m not getting off Verrazano completely, and still think it’s very possible he will run well, but Orb (and his jockey) are just doing too well right now and these are my co-choices for now.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now if you want to go ahead and claim some sort of victory based on what has been posted only on this board, if the contest is purely picking the winner in the Derby, you certainly have that right. But I think the one thing we can all agree on is, truly honest horseplayers have more than their fair share of incorrect opinions on a fairly regular basis.
As for Verrazano, I was more thinking something like the Haskell for him, again, there is absolutely nothing on the record that indicates he would have any sort of trouble at that distance. The Travers would largely depend on whether or not he can get back to his Feb form and who else is in the race. If the field ends up as poor as last year\'s was, I have absolutely no problem saying he would have a really good chance winning that race (assuming no physical issues).
