I also don't dislike Old Fashioned, I'm just eager to see how he does as he climbs the competition ladder.

Superstar? She had 4 or 5 races in the 90's leading up to the Derby, a good stalking speed, and a great trip...it didn't take much to beat the other 18 horses in that field.

Why is Delaware the land of make believe?

She had five mediocre races, then suddenly won by 15 at Fair Grounds and turned into a monster. She may just have turned on the lightswitch, all I'm saying is it was very sudden and significant development for her.

If you haven't noticed, there are tons of horses that coincidentally only run well at Delaware, then fall on their faces when they ship anywhere but Philly. It's a profitable angle at Saratoga especially.

Part of the Delaware stupidity is that their Beyer figures are complete garbage. I don't know who makes the figures but there isn't a racetrack in America where form holds up so poorly other places based solely on the numbers.

As far as Old Fashioned, what people need to remember is this. He loafed on an easy and uncontested lead in the Remsen and pulled away from a very suspect group. Trying to beat him today is the only way to approach the race. Silver City is going to give him a very stern test in my opinion and if OF blows his doors off then we know we have a legitimate Derby player.

NT

I think I got 8-1 on Mani Bhavan at Saratoga because of this belief.

She got loose on an easy lead and never reproduced that performance, so congrats I guess. I just know that I've saved a good amount of money by throwing out overbet Delaware shippers.

She won the Spinaway afterwards and has been off since a poor performance on poly...I'm not so sure I'd right her off until she's at least raced this year.

Sorry, I just think it's silly to label a track "make belief"...a good horse can come from anywhere.

She won the Spinaway with a 66 Beyer. Might be worth mentioning.

Of course a good horse can come from anywhere. I'm not sure what that does to refute my observation that Delaware horses generally run very differently when they ship.

Because your quote was; "I find it hard to have a ton of respect for anybody that's based in the land of make believe (Delaware)." in reference to Larry Jones who has proved time and time again that he knows when he has a good horse and has a strong win percentage outside of the state of Delaware. Not having respect for someone because of their home track is silly in my opinion.

:rolleyes: I just don't agree that he's the 'most deserving' trainer to have a Derby contender, and that's mainly because I don't trust much that comes out of the mid-Atlantic circuit. I understand that he has a cool hat and conducted himself well in the Eight Belles aftermath, but I refuse to believe he should be exempt from all of the scutiny that other 25%+ trainers get.

Del shippers used to be huge at Saratoga, when Tagg was bringing them. You must not have had Mani Bhavan last summer at the Spa. When you have horsemen like Matz, Motion, Tagg, Jones and others at Delaware and Fair Hill, you have talent and quality, both horse and human. Barbaro, Afleet Alex, Hard Spun and more have come out of Delaware in the last couple of seasons.

You're not a handicapper, so I wouldn't expect you to have any idea what I'm talking about.

For the love of Christ, I'm not talking about the clearly exceptional horses that come out of the region. Someone please tell me where I said "no good horses could ever come from Delaware." I'm saying I've found that your average horse that runs well at Delaware is less likely to run the same somewhere else.

It's depressing to watch a race like that where they burn it up the first half and crawl home the back half and not one horse closes to catch the top 2.

so who won?

Old Fashioned. 45.9 and finished in a 1:37 and change.

Horrible race.

Short stretch of the mile run... never an easy spot for closers.

Old Fashioned!

Yeah that 1:36 and chnage mile for Rachel looks even better now.

I thought going into the first turn, "Dominguez is going to blow this race" when it looked as though he was going to head-to-head with SC. It's a good thing he backed off... but like pants said, no one closed anyway.

I call bias. The previous two races had longshot winners wire-to-wire despite solid fractions, then in the Southwest I think the 1-2-3-4 horses at the first two calls ran 2-1-3-5 despite the wicked splits.

Old Fashioned looked very professional but I'm still not sold.