good points

I can't believe it is barely mentioned that neither had been running on real dirt. On my numbers, both were the top dirt horses in the field.

I certainly hope people will continue to ignore the difference.

not for long my friend, soon all we will have blue and green numbers :D

Much easier to ignore that and concentrate on the Hennig's new, mysterious vet, the X factor, the conspiracy, and all of the other controversial justifications. LOL.

Seriously, I think most people picked up on it, but just got drawn to the trainer angle. Hennig is a sharp horseman. He knows what he's doing. OTOH, there are people who will certainly think that the "withdrawal" of "ALL" the drugs was mostly responsible for the improved performances. LOL.

Eric

Overextended got competitive numbers for his BC and Delta Jackpot efforts? Must have been a modest field.

Aside from that though, to some degree, based on his recent form and mismanagement, one had to consider the possibility that Overextended was thoroughly toast after his ridiculous 2yo campaign.

And Notional had a severe injury to overcome last year, which probably kept people off of him (in a graded stakes that is) because of his recent form, too.

Anyways, I wonder if Henning will get Liquidity, too, who has a bowed tendon to return from.

And while we are talking about Reddam horses, what about Mistical Plan's recent 3rd in a Belmont stakes race (Ogden Phipps)? Was that an improvement from her synthetic form figurewise? If not, and she gets transfered to Hennig, it will be interesting to see if he moves her up as well.

While Overextended getting back on track was good to see, let's all remember that it was against NY bred company, as was mentioned earlier in the thread. It's also worth mentioning that he ran down a horse who has now seriously shortened stride in the final eighth of every race he's ever runand has only one win over a ridiculously biased inner track to show for himself.

NT

I mentioned that in post #11. I said, " I do admit that Notional is a much better horse on conventional dirt, so that could have been a big reason for his improvement."

I would have a hard time believing anything Hennig may have given Notional would rival what O'Neill may have given him in the past. I think if anything the surface and the drop were more of the reasons why Notional ran so big yesterday, still I have to admit he surprised the heck out of me how big he ran yesterday.