I\'m going to play a little Devil\'s Advocate here with both of these.
To my eye Cathryn Sophia isn\'t built like a router. She looks more like a sprinter. If I were betting just on looks and breeding I think the 1 1/8th of the Oaks would be too far for her. That\'s a little besides the point because she obviously can run and it would appear from the way that she has been able to finish that more distance wouldn\'t be a problem for her. But to add to her physical confirmation, she was an ugly mover early on and it took a lot of work just to get her to come around. She\'s stubborn. I think the lead change issue is more of her just being her and not listening to her cues than a physical issue. It\'s a mental thing, and that could mean trouble at longer distances if she doesn\'t \"grow up\" first. So I will put my money where my mouth is and say that if her first try around two turns has a decent field size and there is some quality in there I will be willing to bet against Sophia. Guess we\'ll see.
Songbird, on the other hand, is all router and just gallops them silly on the front end. I dunno what would happen if she had to take dirt, but it seems almost irrelevant because she\'s barely ever been headed during a race. No one can seem to keep up with her for 3/4 of a mile. Those are some real fractions she is setting on the front end too, 23.20, 46.02, 109.98. To my eye its that third fraction where she is taking the will out of her competition, and so far that\'s been enough and she then wins \"geared down\" in the stretch.
There\'s always a lot of speculation about what a horse \"could have\" run if they weren\'t geared down at the end of the race. And Songbird is certainly one of those. But truthfully, if she\'s going to set those kind of fractions I don\'t know how much faster she would be able to finish if someone else was really coming and the distance was a little longer. She\'s probably got a bit more, but that\'s got to be about it. So the extra distance and quality of the field in the Oaks could get her too. For Songbird, her last few races have been more or less over after 3/4 of mile. That\'s what she knows.
So I\'m not conceding the Oaks to anyone. Yet.
