His performance last time was terrific. No doubt. And, I have no problem with the assertion that he might prove a very good horse. But, and I know you will agree with this, the rest of his resume leaves a lot to be desired. Personally, I am always suspect of horses that have one explosive performance, out of relative nowhere, after a few OK to mediocre ( and in Divine Park's case....poor ) performances. To me, they need to stay sound and replicate these races a few times before I am sold. We have simply seen too many flashes in the pan over the years to get all excited after one " great " performance. I hope Divine Park has more to come, and will be FAR from surprised if he wins Monday, but his resume leaves too much to be desired, overall, to right now suggest he is a better horse than Commentator, given what that one has done many times in his career. Sure, Divine Park has more upside. It's May of his 4YO year whereas Commentator is an oft injured 7YO. However, Divine Park has a lot of proving to do to show that he is a better horse.

Including First Defence is what really makes the whole discussion laughable and exposes that the opinion is nothing more than a biased argument against Commentator. Hey, who knows, he's a young 4YO as well, and trained by a great trainer, so anything is possible. But, based on what he has done, it is virtually impossible that he will ever have a resume even mildly comparable, in any way, to Commentator. Who knows, maybe he too will beat Commentator on Monday, but he will still be left with a great deal to do to even remotely compare favorably to the 7YO.

No doubt about it: First Defence is a PUNK. Nothing else to say about him.

And, DP will have to go a long way to remove the clinkers in SA and LRL from my mind. Hard to reconcile his race at KEE, the one against C P West, and his last performance with the two poor performances.

With that said: if DP replicates his last race, he beats the old horse.

You get no major argument from me. Unless Commentator runs his A race he won't beat Divine Park's last race. Tough for any old timer to do.

LOL, silly Hooves. That's Jerry Brown's line!

i agree. a mile might be commentators undoing at this point in his career. the short field with no pace is his best hope though. divine park has gotten good and he has probably the best trainer around. i don't think his last race was a perfect set up. i think he pissed all over that field.

When Monterey Jazz was in this race I was about as excited to bet this race as I have been since Pyro was the huge favorite in the Blue Grass. Now that he is out and there won't be any pace at all I have no interest in wagering a penny or in even watching it live. I'll catch the replay later and find something else to do while the race is being run. Fun to turn what is usually one of the races I'm most excited in each year into a walkover.

If they go 44 plus for the half and Commentator is on the lead it is over. He's undefeated when going 44+ in a sprint or 46+ in a route and on the lead and winless when that hasn't been the case.

Then why aren't you betting out on Commentator?

He'll be 2/5 against that field. When I thought there was going to be a Premium Wine/Lord Snowdon exacta it was an exciting proposition to make that much money. To bet on a 2/5 or an even money favorite does nothing for me. It was the whole prospect of both him and Monterey Jazz being vastly overbet and finishing off the board that intrigued me.

He might not be the favorite. But, either way, at least you won't be losing money on that absurd exacta you suggested. You might want to take a careful look at the pps for the 3rd at Belmont tomorrow to see both how bad a race the Carter was and how unreliable the fig is.

Lord Snowden? That's funny. Have you even heard of Divine Park?

I was hoping for a balls to the wall style pace duel between the big two that would suck all the stalkers in and set up perfectly for those plodders. Of course I'd have played Divine Park with then. But the scenario of those two bums coming in one-two with both favorites off the board for a monster payout is what had me interested in the race. Now we are looking at a small field where Commentator, at short odds, looks unbeatable which is just no fun for me to bet.

You so desperately want Commentator to lose that you are completely ignoring that he may well not be the favorite so that should he lose it will be even easier to dump on him.

It may be late, but I'm not falling for that routine.

Actually I like Commentator but knowing his tendencies makes him as good a favorite to bet against in the sport with the right horses entered against him. Let's face it, we all make less when the favorite finishes in the trifecta since 92% of tickets include the favorite. So I like to find the races that the favorite is susceptible to finishing off the board so that the 25% of the time when that happens I can capitalize on being part of the 8% of tickets that have that happening. If nothing else, I've at least learned that much from Crist.

Oh Yeah

And Durkin's call made it all the sweeter: "And here comes First Defence, confidently ridden".

Good call.

You also hit 10 on
the humility scale.

How much ya make?

You must have cleaned up, getting a 7/1 shot out of the money like that. McLaughlin should send Frankel some champagne, as First Defence did all the dirty work.

Are you one of his supporters?

And, why is hooking a horse ENTERING the STRETCH, doing the dirty work?

Who forced Commentator into the :44 and change half? Kiss the Kid?

Either Johnny V or Commentator himself.

At least we learned that you were right that First Defence is a better horse than Commentator.

Commentator was terrific today. The rest? Divine Park was OK.

It would be interesting to see Commentator, Big Brown and Curlin go at it. Either Commentator would get loose on the lead and run away or Big Brown would go with him setting it up for Curlin.

Too bad the BCC is on the polytrack. NYRA needs to put up $5m for the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Tie it into a bonus if a horse wins the JCGC and BCC.

commentator ran huge in defeat.. hope he comes out of it well...
devine park is very good right now..congrats to chuck for picking this out at the sale........

The final 1/4 in the Met Mile was 27.30 ...

The final 1/4 in the 7th race, a one mile pace at the Meadowlands harness track today was 27.80 and the horse who won that race was 40/1.

Makes you wonder how the great Lord Snowdon didn't win.

Is that final quarter time actually right?? Seems almost impossible to be correct. DRF still has it listed as 1:09.61, 1:36.91.

It's correct. Here's the chart with the splits.

Outside of the Whitney, this was probably Commentator's best race. At least he wasn't facing NY breds or 40K claiming types. That said, this wasn't the strongest edition of the Met Mile.

I don't think this race was any better than his third in the Tom Fool last year.

I was foolish in failing to read through the pp's that First Defence would be going balls out from the gate. Commentator needed an easy first quarter and he did not get that today. I told a few people the race would be decided in the first two furlongs. 22.48 was not what the first quarter I anticpated. The second quarter which was run in 22.04 was too much for Commentator to sustain a strong stretch run.

Commentator ran his eye balls out and I think it's a great thing to see a 7 year old run a race like he did. At least a decent horse in Devine Park was the one who benefitted from the fast early fractions.

KIp D. in the BC.
Summer and fall comes.
None after that. ONe bet.

And you pull it up.
If you dont believe me.

I believe we had a bet that did not quite make it
Mr. Big Money. 200 was trivial. 1000 and you quiver.
Dont post about betting chicken sh it.

Divine Park 109

Unless they split the variant, this number is going to be too high. That gives Manteca in the 3rd about a 103, and Alexandros a 94.

This does, however, fit with the # Beyer had for Emotival in Argentina.

Yeah, I can't believe this nonsense. "That's too low for the Met".. "Raise it".. "Wait, that's too high for Manteca".. "Uh, lower it"..

So the track started out slow, somehow got faster in between the second and third races, then got slow again?

Agreed... if the number sucked, the number sucked. It's certainly reasonable to be bad, as nobody did any running late, obviously. Why sugarcoat it?

Well there were big gaps between the dirt races. . .

edit

The 109 was for the first 6 furlongs. Beyer split the variant on the last quarter.:p

Cool chart, to me looking at that the slowish third quarter really helped Divine Park get back into it, and then the complete crawl at home let him win.

Second slowest running in the past 60 years.

I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but they ran the second and third races back to back, on dirt at a mile. I'd be interested to see what BSF's those races got. Manteca ran 2.76 seconds faster than Emotival, which should give him a way bigger figure. If those two are in line with the Met, then Manteca should get around a 103 and Emotival about a 70 or so, no?

It depends on what you do with the sixth. I don't know how you'd translate that 1:20.57 to a mile, but the winning BSF of that race should've been high 50's/low 60's.

Considering First Defence's immense talent I can't understand how the race got below a 130.