I am still squarely of the opinion that Verrazano is the most talented horse of this crop, when at his best. The obvious question now is, how often can he be at his best, or even worse, did he peak in Feb with form he won\'t ever get back to.
I incorrectly assumed this spring that he would be able to get back to his Feb form by Derby time, and perhaps that was an indication that he won\'t ever be able to do that again. I don\'t have the benefit of the in-person evaluations Covello gets, but as you mentioned, even the jock and agent thought he was the most talented horse. He just was not back into form during the Derby timeframe for whatever reason.
I do agree with you that there are zero excuses here on Sat. With the speed-favoring strip and the amt of rest he has had, plus showing a decent (if not easy) race over the strip already, there is no excuse (maybe short of slop, if he really doesn\'t enjoy it?) for him to not get back to his best unless there is a long-term issue.
If he fails, it doesn\'t mean he wasn\'t a great horse during the winter. It just means that he was not able to sustain the greatness for more than a couple months, which makes him much less durable than even the fragile types we see in abundance these days. It is what it is.
