I'm certainly not suggesting he is the second coming of Holy Bull and perhaps not even Macho Uno, however there is a quality horse here for those who want to take a deeper look. I'm not sure if it's this board or perhaps other boards are simular, but hopefully the hype that may becoming associated to this horse is not this overblown. No one is saying he is great just yet, certainly I never called him great.

which is why i don't understand why people call AWT an 'equalizer'. it just gives rotten dirt horses a chance to beat good dirt horses when they have to run on 'dirt'-so how is it an equalizer??

I guess I am one of those nimrods you speak of. However, it's not accurate to say, at least in my case, that I dismissed it as an excuse. I think that I said to say that it was the ONLY excuse was the wrong thing to do, without considering that it could be the distance or the second-turn. Admittedly, I did think that those other factors played a bigger part than the polytrack did and after seeing him here, it appears that I was wrong.

I'm still not sure, as while he obviously didn't like polytrack, he also didn't run particularly fast here, and he still appears like he may be better suited to a one turn mile. As weak as these 3YOs appear, he will still need to run better to win races like the Jim Dandy, Haskell, or Travers. Unfortunately the timing isn't great for the Jim Dandy, and maybe even the Haskell, as it would be good to see how he would run in one of those as then they could choose between the Travers and King's Bishop.

His best race by far was The Withers where he showed an explosive kick, he may be more suited to a one turn mile if the 2 races are the true. The test will be the Jim Dandy where all the indications seem to be is his next start. You would hope he can beyer in the 100 range if he would want to be considered for the Travers.

You would - but I'm not sure he'll need to this year. . . He'd be much more interesting from a betting standpoint in the King's Bishop where he would probably be at least some kind of price.

I think you may be thinking historically here. We think of races like the Dandy, Haskell, and especially the Travers and we think of the types of horses that win those races. We don't see Harlem Rocker as that type of horse at this point so it makes sense to say he'd need to improve. However, when I look at the current group of 3yo's, once I get past Big Brown, I can't see another horse that stands out in the group that would make me think Harlem Rocker would have to improve to beat them. With this group, any horse that has four legs and a pulse has to be considered and any horse that's won a stakes has to be considered among the favorites and any horse that's been able to win more than one stakes has to be considered the horse to beat in any 3yo race at longer than 8f.

its really not that simple. although the overall quality may be lower, not every horse that won a stake is necessarily ready for the Travers, nor will they necessarily be considered the horse to beat in any race longer than 8F. I think you have to get a little deeper than that. and go on a case by case basis.

Agreed. Right now, at a one-turn mile, there aren't many three-year-olds I'd take over Harlem Rocker. At ten furlongs though, there are a handful.

A handful? Unless I've missed something, tell me which 3yo's have proven themselves better than Harlem Rocker at 10f? Which ones have proven themselves better than him at 9f? Speculation is one thing but I'm talking about that's actually proven more on the track?

Wood winner-Tale of Ekati
SA Derby winner-Colonel John
Arkansas Derby winner-Gayego
Blue Grass winner-Monba
Swaps winner-Tres Borrachos

Do any of those horses strike fear? Not to me they don't. I'm not saying that HR has proven that he's better than them either. But I definitely think he fits with them and wouldn't have to improve to be competitive with them. Again, I think most people have it in their minds what it NORMALLY takes to be a Travers type of horse and not looking at this year. If Harlem Rocker had to beat a Point Given, Birdstone, Flower Alley, Bernardini or Street Sense.....yeah, I'd agree that he's not a Travers horse. But outside of Big Brown, who may not even be in the race, for the life of me, I can't see any 3yo that I would take over him with any confidence at 10f.

I finally actually watched this race and thought HR's performance was more impressive than the 90 fig would indicate. He made a sweeping but much too early move on the turn, looked beaten, and then re-broke in the lane.

I agree in principle, the card at Fort Erie was filled with low level claimers and 5 furlong turf sprint races, so it was hard to have a good gauge just how fast Harlem Rocker ran, given the fact that most of his competition ran primarily on poly so basically the vast majority of the horses were running in uncharted waters when it came to dirt races. There was really no one to compare him with.

On a side note Not Bourbon flipped his palate during the race.

No argument here. . . the verdict's still out until he runs back at the Spa.

The distance or the polytrack debate lives on.

He's probably a 1 turn miler in all honesty. Just how good is anyone's guess.