I've always said that if you don't go into the Derby with the intention of winning it, you shouldn't go at all. If you do go planning on winning it, the next step is obviously the Preakness. The point is, if you aren't preparing your horse for the entire series, you are asking for trouble. How can you expect a horse that's conditioned to run once every 6-8 weeks to be ready to run three times in six weeks? You can't.

As for the hype of the horses, I think it's really a case of people are looking for hope where maybe it's not really there. But this is what the sport has left us with. Horses don't run enough anymore for us to properly evaluate actual talent and ability against other top horses so all we can do is watch a good horse beat mediocres and pin our hopes on them as future stars. I think back to my first year as a fan, 1986. We had Java Gold, Polish Navy, Gulch, Capote, Bet Twice, Talinum, Temperate Sil, Demons Begone, Qualify, Alysheba...the list goes on.....and they were competing against each other regularly as 2yos and on the TC trail as 3yos. We KNEW who the top horses were. Yearly, that was the case. It wasn't like now where it's mostly speculating and guessing.

Yep, there isn't just one way of doing things; what works for one horse won't work for another. I'm sure Mott badly wants to win a Derby, but if he doesn't think running THAS (for instance) more than 2x before hitting KY is the right thing, then I have to believe he's right. I don't think that this horse will lose the Derby because he's not fit enough.

I understand hope and I don't mean to imply that the horses we've seen recently are not talented or are not capable of being among the best in their crop.......We'll see them run against their more proven counterparts soon enough. The fact is, though, after the TC, you're right they don't run enough anymore - against each other especially. 1986- what a fantastic crop of horses. Gulch was the first horse I followed from beginning to end and I was lucky, I think - he was a pretty special horse

My feeling on it is that he won't be fit enough. In years past, he would have been at a big disadvantage conditioning wise. He could be the most talented, like Arazi was, but the margin for error is so small that any advantage you give to the others could be enough to cause a loss. However, he's lucky enough to have come along in this new era of less is more. When all of his main competition will be coming in with the same two, at most three starts, he's then not at a disadvantage anymore. For the most part, it's going to be a competition between a bunch of unfit and undertrained horses bred for 8f and the one that lasts the longest and gets the best trip will win.

I'm more in agreement with you in that I think a horse like Uncle Mo or Boys at Tosconova deserve to stay near the top of the rankings until proven otherwise. Yes, they are out of sight and that opens the door for others to move in but the others haven't done more than the leaders have. I believe that a champ is a champ until beaten. Right now, the Spurs are running away with the best record in the NBA but until they beat the Lakers in the playoffs or someone else does, LA is still the champ.

If all the trainers feel that 2 starts is enough, then maybe it is.........times change. Don't you think that 3 starts is pushing it ? Didn't Northern Dancer's trainer (for some reason, I'm totally blanking, but I know him) say "never squeeze the lemon dry"?

That's right - I just don't think they've done anything wrong to be knocked off their perch, esp. by maiden winners. For all we know, Uncle Mo ,THAS, Boys, etc... will be even better at 3 than they were last year. I wouldn't even put Dialed In above them until I see the others come back ..........and they don't have to win, either.

No, I absolutely don't feel that two starts is enough. I think they should run 6-8 times as 2yos and the Derby should be a fourth start MINIMUM as a 3yo. Times may change but basic principles of conditioning and muscle training remain the same. You have to get your body ready if you are going to ask it to do something. Horses are athletes too and once you reach your peak, you stay in it with activity not inactivity. I think that's why you see a lot of Derby winners come back with really strong Preakness performances in only two weeks, which seems to fly in the face of modern thinking that you need 6-8 weeks to recover from a huge effort. I think that racing is a lot like other sports in that it's a copy-cat game. It worked for one so now everyone wants to do it and then, as I said earlier, they all end up in the same underconditioned boat and then it's no longer a disadvantage to any of them. I bet if a horse ran five preps this year and then won the Derby, next year, you'd see more with three or four as the pendelum would start to swing back again.

how do you reconcile the two? if you think horses should race more, that there's more to racing than the classics, how can you then defend someone not racing because they only have the derby in their sights?
besides, you've got rht agreeing with you. that ought to tell you you're on the wrong track.

seems like this discussion rolls around every year. horses who haven't race at three are on peoples radar as being the ones to beat, when they've yet to show a thing as a 3 yo. newcomers are dismissed, and fairly often they're the ones to watch.

I have never dismissed a newcomer and in general they never seem dismissed to me. Dunkirk and Curlin come to mind.

And Big Brown, Bernardini, Smarty Jones, Flower Alley, Summer Bird, Rock Hard Ten, Eskendereya.....

The newcomers aren't dismissed but not all of us forget about the reigning leaders just because they haven't raced recently. The returning leaders have to prove they still belong; the newcomers have to prove they belong. Both groups have something to prove but if I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone, it's gonna be to the ones that have at least showed it in top company before.

2 on your list were not new comers.

Which two?

Big Brown was on a lot of peoples radar. He ran off to a huge turf win at Saratoga at 2. Eskendereya won an off the turf race for fun at 2 and proved he was really a dirt horse. I bet him in the BC Juvy and if that race was on dirt I am sure he would have made some noise. Im pretty sure Smarty ran at 2.

Yes, they all ran as 2yos. I didn't think any of them were on the on the radar as far as being serious TC candidates through the first month of their sophomore seasons though. Nowhere near the top of most lists so that's what I consider a newcomer.

Eskendereya was in Joey S December top 5.
Good points on everyone else.

Smarty Jones was my second favorite (behind Lion Heart) after the Count Fleet in early January. But just because I had him, I still know that he wasn't on most people's lists.

so? i didn't know you were in the media. my point was that we have no top two year olds to discuss right now at 3, since they're all still in the barn; that any horse who runs a good race at any time leading up to may will be in the discussion because a horse can emerge as a contender at any time; that at this point, who won the bcj doesn't mean a whole lot, as it's a whole new year.

That's a good point about the Preakness - can't argue with you there. Well, neither of the consensus top two (top 3 ) horses - Mo, THAS and BOYS ran that much, but then the first two didn't even debut until Saratoga. I can't say that 6-8 starts as a baby is right when for me a lot depends on pedigree. Racing and other sports definitely tend towards copy-catting - not necessarily a good thing as I still see horses as individuals and what works for one won't necessarily work for another. I guess if I think about it, 2 starts to go a grueling 1 1/14 (with all the banging around that goes on) doesn't really toughen a horse. I'm sort of torn on this.

But I don't think these horses have only the Derby in their sights - at least, that wasn't what I meant to say. I meant that there is more to racing than the TC and horses should be running more. Instead, racing is a means to an an end: the breeding shed. I mean, was there any reason to retire Bernardini? He's just one example - there are tons of others. It's frustrating - it would be like a great baseball player retiring at, say, 26 - before he even hits his prime.

I'm not trying to dismiss the newcomers - every horse at one point was a newcomer - but they have as much to prove (if not more) than the 2 year olds from last year who haven't run. I think they all have things to prove, but my general theory is that of King Glorious - until those promisng babies from last year show they can't do it, then the newcomers will have to show they can (winning a maiden race or an allowance against bad fields doesn't necessarily tell me anything). Any talented maiden victor could turn into a Curlin or a Bernardini, but they might not.

As to RHT and I agreeing, well maybe I'm naive and I'm putting too much trust in Bill Mott; I genuinely have a lot of faith in the horse. There are many reasons why a horse loses the Derby; is there a recent example of a horse that looked to be the best, but lost because he got exhausted down the lane due to insufficient racing (as opposed to tripping on his pedigree)? Live Oak adores THAS, but they also want this horse to be tested, so my guess is that they would be fine with a fairly strenuous FOY. For a very talented horse that's had it fairly easy, this might be enough for him (as opposed to, say, 3 races) prior to the Derby. Maybe an untested horse just needs to be looked in the eye or asked to do things he's not been asked to do before - and maybe if that happens in a race, you don't need more than 2 races to be successful.