Unfortunately, my view on the Derby is already pretty clouded by a) horses I have tried to buy, and b) my futures plays from the Wynn so I am afraid everyone needs to already take all of this with even more of a grain of salt than they might already.
that said, let\'s try to get this Derby party started!
I don\'t want to go into detail on the horses from this weekend that I have made offers on but there are a few of them and the first thing I would say is that this is the toughest market I have seen to buy horses privately in the 8 or so years I have been seriously pursuing this. We have made some serious serious offers for horses or pieces of horses and people are laughing in our faces. Not sure if it\'s a reflection of the better economy, better market for breeding or the smaller foal crop making people more bullish about the good horses they do have but anyway you cut it, this is a very very bullish private market and so consequently, I haven\'t bought a horse since Testa Rossi for the Breeders Cup despite making maybe 50 offers on different horses since then.
As is usually the case, it\'s not always people making the right decisions either as one of the horses we had made a serious offer on is already off the Derby Trail (although we have no way of knowing if he would have passed vetting).
Anyway, all of this said, the horse I really like for this weekend is General ARod.
yes, he\'s one of my futures plays but as I believe the TGs will show when they get put up, he\'s the fastest horse in the race, he\'s well rested with perfect timinng into this race and he\'s working extremely well from everything I understand. The horse he beat last out came back to win in an impressive performance and he drew perfectly for this race. He won\'t be the favorite in the race because of all of the steam on the Pletcher and Shug horses and the fact that he hasn\'t done it going the two turns and so I do think the value will be there. I have no issue at all with him and the two turns both because of the way he runs and moves and the Dynaformer bottom side. I don\'t know about the 1 1/4 but I feel very good about his prospects this weekend at what should be a decent price.
In terms of further down the road, I really like Commissioner (another one of my Wynn future plays from back in early Jan). He would need to jump way forward to win this on the sheets and he\'s not playable as the expected favorite on Sat but I think down the road, he could be the one at Churchill. He showed a very good burst of speed in the last race to close a several length gap in a matter of strides on a speed favoring track and that was very impressive to me. He\'s obviously bred to the moon and having won two 1 1/8 races already, needless to say, he can get the distance. He may wind up being a Belmont horse like his Daddy but I think he showed enough turn of foot in that last race to convince me that he can do it at Churchill. I don\'t expect him to win on Saturday but I think he will move forward and set himself up well for the next two races
I don\'t have a strong opinion at FG. The FG hasn\'t produced a horse that has made any real noise in the Derby in a long time. I don\'t know whether its the level of compeition, the track or the climate/climate change but we just haven\'t seen alot of horses that have mattered in the Derby coming from FG so I pay less attention to those preps.
I know Shared Belief and Candy Boy are the steam horses on the west coast but the horse on the west coast I like the most is Bayern (full disclosure my 3rd of 4 Wynn plays from early Jan). I don\'t know what he ran on the TGs last time but I love this way this horse runs and even though he didn\'t beat much, a 15 length win at Santa Anita is impressive reglardless. That\'s the kind of move of of the ordinary that I have come to look look for this time of year.
Speaking of that, as always, I think the key is to look this weekend for horses doing something out of the ordinary to identify them as a real top Derby prospect. Orb closing from last on a speed biased track in last year\'s FOY, Barbaro winning from the far outside in the Fla Derby, Big Brown winning by open lengths against stakes horses in his 3rd lifetime start. Animal Kingdom winning the Spiral Stakes from dead last on a track where no other horse that was worse than second at first call had won all day.
These are all things that can help identify special horses that can win the Derby and seperate those types from merely very good horses who look impressive winning in Derby preps with perfect trips. Tapiture for example had everything go his way last weekend. Doesn\'t mean he\'s not a really nice horse but a perfect trip winner isn\'t what I am looking for to identify a derby winner at this time of the year. Given the 20 horse field and all of the rough stuff that goes on during the race, it\'s rare for anyone to get a perfect trip in the derby so I want someone who has overcome adveristy/done something to show they are truly special before the race.
disclaimer: in no way shape or form did I have all of the horses that did \"something special\" ahead of time above in the derby. This is after the fact analysis which has helped me the last several years that I wished I had thought about the previous decade.
would love everyone\'s thoughts.
If history serves, board should really heat up soon and that\'s always alot of fun.
