Memo to Rose Napravnik:

IF McLaughlin lets you ride that horse again, do not try to rate him. If you let him roll, he would've avoided all that trouble. What was the opening quarter? 24 4/5??

Had he been rolling early he would have finished farther back then he did.

I'm not sure how you are coming to that conclusion. He set a very fast pace (adjusted) in the Hawthorne Gold Cup and still had enough left to outfinish Giant Oak. Now what was he? 1-2 lengths ahead of Giant Oak on the backstretch? What was the half in the Clark, 48 and change? 49?

While I agree that he should have been closer, the race collapsed and there's no guarantee he would've stayed on.

It's Rosie ... and why bother with memo's to pinheads?

There was no pace at all on paper - other than the hopeless Regal Ransom - and she decides to reach up and grab a horse coming out of a race where he earned an absolutely supersonic pace figure and beat Giant Oak - who got the pace setup of a lifetime and could only manage 2nd.

It was a clever change of tactics - take away a horses best weapon - so you can get Knocked sideways around the first turn while eye balling other horses. I realize the bump on the far turn was what led to the DQ ... but that was the best thing that happened to Rosie the whole race.

Everytime Redding Collery doesn't run a very big pace figure - he runs like dogsh!t. He had a perfectly clean trip at Monmouth - but Duke of Mishchief absolutely toyed with him in a cleanly run slow paced race.

I was telling people that I was going to be fuming if she doesn't have a two length lead on Regal Ransom through the first turn - I needed to be scraped off the floor when I saw her taking him back - keeping him wide - getting bounced around like a pin ball - and eye to eye with a pack of other horses while several lenghts off the leader behind a pokey pace.

Yeah - the race "collapsed" because the two horses up front suck - and Giant Oak and Succesful Dan are simply much better than any horse in that race who didn't finish in the top 3.

The pace was a friggen joke. 48.92 for a half mile and Successful Dan almost ripped Leperoux out of the saddle. It was a crawl. Cheap claimers went much faster at the same distance.

That's not a collapse. That's the two best horses in the race outrunning a pack of inferior horses.

He held off Giant Oak with ease at 10 furlongs last time out ... at 9fs it would have been a piece of cake.

With ease? Hyperbole at it's finest.

Face it, Reading Colliery just isn't as good as many think he is. he wasn't winning under any scenario today and would have been gobbled up by Successful Dan had he been on the muscle throughout.

yup

Based on what - the fact that you didn't like him beforehand - or the fact that Randall agrees with you ... which should always make one question their opinion.

Obviously Giant Oak is a much better horse than everything in that Clark field not named Successful Dan .. but he is not better than Redding Collery.

Redding Collery - on figures - should have had a 7-to-9 length early lead over Regal Ransom - he's that much faster early on than Regal Ransom... and Regal Ransom (fresh off of his 69 Beyer last out) was the 2nd quickest horse in this race.

Even the Moss Pace figures say the same thing.



All the credit goes to Rosie ... she's actually going to get a slower first call pace number than the 48 she got at Monmouth when Duke Of Mischief pissed all over Redding Collery.



He was a much bigger price than Apart - who is a complete piece of crap and should have been 30/1 in the Clark. How good do people really think the horse is?

Apart really was hilarious at 7:2. He was a litmus test horse.

You mean the guy that wrote this "Off his last two performances, it would be a surprise if Apart, barring injury, isn't a major Grade 1 force next year" was wrong?

http://www.drf.com/blogs/praise-apart

Crazy. Somehow, apparently, despite running slowly, and winning with perfect trips, being Blame's barnmate was going to elevate his skills.

Lots of words and you really said nothing here. You're Classhandicapper with a better opinion, congrats.

Not sure what Apart has to do with anything. I'm basing it on my opinion of the horse. I don't need to be Kreskin to figure out you liked Redding Colliery and instead of just accepting he's not that good, it's going to be excuse after excuse. Successful Dan is better than he is. Much better.

Simple question, if he opens up 5 or 6 early, who do you think wins the race?

Apart is in the unenviable position of having the same connections and similar profile to Blame with the betting public (and the connections themselves) in turn anticipating that "lightning will strike twice".

Others in this category include Postponed (cf. Lemon Drop Kid), Smooth Performance (cf. Go And Go), Pleasant Tango (cf. Pleasant Tap), Opening Verse (cf. Blushing John), Hello Broadway (cf. Nobiz Like Shobiz), siblings of Barbaro, siblings of Mineshaft, siblings of Giacomo, any Team Valor purchase from South Africa, etc.

It will be hard to live up to either Ipe Tombi's outstanding 1 for 1 record or her great production as a broodmare.

Redding Collery absolutely wins. There's not even a morsel of doubt in my mind.

Successful Dan is a very good horse - probably every bit as good as RC...he crossed the wire first in a Grade 1 today despite being rank and erratic - and throwing more body checks on other horses than the "crash line" of Mike Pauloso, Randy McKay, and Bobby Holik would throw in a typical shift for the New Jersey Devils back in the day when hockey was on national TV.

What do you mean excuse after excuse? Look at his last five starts. His wins in the Hawthorne Gold Cup and Lone Star Park Handicap were sensational performances when he was up on screaming fast paces.

The defeat in the $1,000,000 race at Charles Town at 7/1 was a great performance. He broke from the 10-hole going a three-turn 9fs on a bullring and pressed a very strong pace and still ran extremely well.

The other two races - are his 2nd at Monmouth and 3rd today in the Clark. Both of them were similarly run races ... they featured painfully slow paces - and Redding Collery was rated off of the lead in both. RC had a very clean trip in the MTH drubbing .. today he didn't exactly have a clean trip.

He easily could've done that. The horse sitting 4th in the Haw Gold Cup was 13 lengths out after 6f...and he was an early speed horse. With a perfect pace setup, Giant Oak was a non-threatening 4 1/2 lengths behind RC at the 1/8th pole (the 1 1/8 mile point) of the Hawthorne Gold Cup. Giant Oak was a huge underlay in the Marathon due to bettors thinking he was flying. He wasn't. RC was just getting tired after setting too fast a pace.

We'll agree to disagree.

I just don't get excited by horses outrunning Awesome Gem and AU Miner. I think if he opened up a big lead he would have been finished farther back than he did. And ultimately I don't think he's much horse at all, Moss figs or not.

You can't just project what happens in one race onto another and say this is going to happen because it happened in another race. Don't you think riders ride a 9 furlong race a bit differently than a 10 furlong race? Closers are asked at different times, etc.