Way too early still. As I watch it again, when JV took a look back around the final turn into the stretch, the horse kinda of said "what am I supposed to do?" for a moment... I really cant take much out of this at all upon review. Running on the beach sand... and the 2nd place horse had a big ground saving trip on a track that leaders held well on today, early races at least. But I was not expecting to see the horse to run completely away from the others anyway based on what I have seen from him. Expectations before a race play a big role in how one views the race.

But I do think its true the horse is rated highly because of Pletcher and not his accomplishments.

The Southwest should be much more interesting.

i really dont see anything wrong at all with the horses performance today. the horse did it pretty easy and wasnt fully extended and thats notta bad thing this time of year when youre on the trail. the horse has proven himself@3 different tracks now and has already showed churchill isnt gonna be a problem for him if he makes it. hes a half length from being undefeated and theres no shame in losing to the lone horse who has defeated him. i think the harshness on him is unwarranted at this point

He's a grinding type....the way he finished doesn't bother me. He was twitching his ears once he put the field away, and never left the impression that he was a spent horse.

The only legit knock on his performance I see is that he simply didn't run very fast.

I don't think it's " harshness " at all. It's just a reasonably honest evaluation of TODAY'S race. I don't think anyone suggested he couldn't ( and shouldn't ) improve.....it's really just as DrugS said......he didn't run very fast. Even in a first start he probably should have run a little faster for a horse who is getting so much hype. More it's just a slight cause for pause.

I don't understand how anyone can say that this horse doesn't have heart after the way he battled with Tiz Wonderful, who would probably be one of the top three derby contenders at this point if he hadn't gotten hurt. I agree that his race today wasn't exactly incredible, but he did pretty much everything that was asked of him. I was looking forward to seeing AGS run again to try and get a better feel for his talent level, but unfortunately, I think his race today was inconclusive.

He ran .10 second slower than Blue Grass Cat's 2006 Sam Davis.

Coming to the wire, his ears were pricked and he was looking around. He got squeezed a bit and ate some dirt early on. It was a good education that took nothing out of him.

The biggest plus, in my handicapping mind, is when the Tampa Bay Derby comes up, and the challengers ship in from So. Fla., he will have a distinct advantage because he now has a trip over the surface.

How good is Distorted Humor? That's all.

Of course, the bottom line is that it wasn't fast. I didn't mean to imply he was spent, it was just my impression that the performance was much closer to his best than people might think.

The fact that his ears were twitching doesn't do much for me, I can't read too much into that.

Remember Sun King's uninspiring prep race at Tampa, he wasn't a factor in the Derby, he's turned out to be a nice horse, I'll give him a pass here...

So now this horse is like Sun King? I guess we could say the same about any horse that runs an uninspiring race, yet they are not all going to turn out to be Sun Kings.
Besides, I believe the current discussion here is focused on the derby and not to say that the horse can't develop to be a nice one down the road.

No, I was agreeing with Kasept that it's a funny track...

I don't think it was all that bad or good, coming off of a layoff on a quirky track...He'll get another chance...

First let me say I thought it was an ok performance. That being said the Derby's in May at Churchill, not February at Tampa. Second, to say he barely won this race is comical and deserves no more time spent on the comment than this. Lastly, I was unaware a horse's heart is measured by the margin of victory against inferior horses who at no point made the race interesting enough of a challenge for AGS to call on heart. Horses win with ability and heart. Some races you need one, some races you need both. Heart certainly wasn't necessary in this race.

I thought Sun King's win in the Tampa Derby was totally awful.

As a 1/20 favorite, against a VERY soft field at level weight, he got to dilly dally on the lead through soft fractions, some soon to be claimer named Forever Wild took a pretty good run at him on the far turn, before SK shrugged him off and won by 3 in unimpressive time. His figure that day shouldn't be that much more than what AGS will get.

SK had a pretty nice comeback race at a one-turn mile one start prior. Tampa's always been a funny track. If anyone remembers last year, a pair of horses (Seek Gold and Take D' Tour) who got soundly beaten at the '06 Tampa meet---both won Grade 1 races on the same day...just a few months later.

I looked at the PPs AND the pedigrees and expected the second finisher to do better at a 2-turn distance than some of the other, more spoken of horses in the field.

I mentioned that earlier in the thread.

The winner is still the better horse of the two, by about 8 lengths or more, at any distance. Trip, and all the circumstancial stuff is what brought those two horses so close together.

I missed your post before the race. I would love to see it.....which thread was it in?

Didn't post it. Don't live on the net. Just thought to myself as I looked at the DRF race of week stuff that the horses they were picking for second and third didn't look as good for the distance as this one. Good, solid state-bred family. I do that sort of thing, being a pedigree geek, not a betting fiend. Was confused, thinking it was a Public Handicapper race so was checking it out.

You don't live on the net? Good to know. I hope you have a warm and safe home.

You did however have the same time AFTER the race to let us know about how you felt about the results that you could just have easily have spent BEFORE the race. Just imagine how much more insightful it might have seemed then.

One can only dream now.

In hindsight, I imagine it was a bit harsh to question this horse's ability/heart based on one race. In rereading some of my posts, I picked up on a bit of vitrol that I normally refrain from....Guess I was severely disappointed by the effort, even though early on the DT, over a quirky track....just expected that AGS should have shown a lot more than what he did against this field... This "hand ride in the stretch" that some refer to was against a horse with a career average beyer of 60.6 over 6 starts - his best a 76....to draw off by 2 and a half lengths againts this class of horse might impress someone, but fell well short of my expectations of him.
Perhaps that's all part of Pletcher's plan for him...Who knows? :confused:

Well, he got a 95 Beyer number, so I guess I must have underrated his performance.

I really on disliked him because DrugS is so high on him.

That's hard to believe.

That was my reaction.

Beyer's can be a bag full of bull pucky and I think this shows it. This number had to come due to the early races where horses on the lead held easily. Maybe because he had a small amount of difficulty early, but I dont know what they use to determine these numbers anymore. I dont read 95 into that run. Maybe cause he shut down early.

I still say the horse should be a mid pack runner, who comes late. The fact that he was up front was competition induced. 95 for a long workout I dont see.

I've avoided this thread because I'm a HUGE Any Given Saturday fan, as I was completely taken by his allowance win at Keeneland last fall.

As far as yesterday's performance I knew there were a number of built-in reasons to discredit it. The first and foremost was that the field really wasn't good. I made James Wilfred the 2nd best in the race but was not surprised to see him beaten pretty handily despite finishing 3rd. However, it is imperative to remember that this was a February stake race at Tampa where a solid Pletcher horse was pointed to for a while- did you think anybody with a well-meant horse would show up?

I think, all in all, the performance was about what you'd expect off a layoff. Was it dynamic? No. Did it make me think he was a solid pick or worthy of the low price he went off last week in Pool 1? No. Most importantly, do most Derby winners make themselves clear in February? No.

It's the first step on a three-race plan to get him to the big day and I think he did what the connections would have wanted.

NT

I agree, not sure what Pletcher thinks though. But some people will see a 95 and then he throws a 93 running a better race... and he's regressing. These numbers are getting bad enough to be comparable to QB ratings.

I realize there are a ton of factors that go into the speed rating, but based solely on fractions, compare the race to the 50k allowance he ran in Oct as they were both a mile and 1/16th:

Allowance: 23.3 / 48 / 113.3 / 144.3 Beyer = 80

Sam F Davis: 23.4 / 48 / 112.2 / 144.2 Beyer = 95

One could make an arguement that the competition in KEE that day (Sam P. for one) was much classier than this bunch. Again, other factors considered, I'm having a tough time getting my arms around a 15 point improvement. I thought it would have been closer to 85-88.

You make a very good point, one thing I can offer is that the Tampa racetrack has been particularly slow and yesterday's times in general were slow. I know very little about computing Beyer figures, but I'm certain that track variant is taken into consideration.

NT

There was a pretty stiff wind at Tampa yesterday too. It was out of the north, which caused a head wind on the back stretch and a tail wind, obviously, on the front. Would think that the direction would cancel any bias, but I don't pretend to have a clue how it's factored into the mix...

You are comparing time from two different tracks on two different days. That's a pointless excersize.

I had projected AGS would get a 90 Beyer for his effort yesterday---It's very rare when I'm 5 points off.

Usually it's about 12?

more like 30

72 posts to disect a relatively uneventful running of the Sam F Davis.

Imagine when the real preps begin.

To give a very brief and tremendously simple summary. There were three route races at Tampa yesterday.

Race #1: The 5/2 favorite won by 1.5 lenghts in 1:45.46 (he had run a 78 Beyer last time out)

Race #8: Autobahn Girl won by 3 lengths as the even money favorite in 1:38.39 for the About 1 mile distance. She ran an 85 Beyer and 89 Beyer in her last two starts.

Race #10: Any Given Saturday won by 2 3/4 lengths in 1:44.27.

Now, I'm not familar with projecting speed figures at Tampa Downs, so I just ignored race #8, because it was run at an oddball distance.

Races #1 and 10 were run at the same distance. Race 10 went exactly 12 points faster than Race #1. So, if you assume the winner of race #1 simply ran the exact same number he did last time out, as I did, that would mean Any Given Saturday would have run 12 points faster than his 78.

It's never easy to make these projections when you have only two route races to work with---but, perhaps Race #1's winner did improve 5 points. Any Given Saturday certainly went backwards off his last race---we've already discussed the many viable reasons why the 2nd place finisher to him could improve...and he certainly did.

To steal a line from you....


....fixed that for ya.

As simple as I could possibly make it my friend.....

From Drf:

"I thought it was a perfect first race back," said Pletcher.

"I didn't want this to be the peak race of his career, and I felt we accomplished everything we hoped for today. I wanted to get a good two-turn race under his belt and not start him back going a one-turn mile, which is one reason we brought him here.

"He hadn't run in a while, and any time you come to a new, deep, demanding surface you always worry if you'd done enough.

"I thought he ran a little green and pricked his ears waiting on horses after making the lead. Hopefully, he'll improve on that as we go along. The plan now is to bring him back here next month for the Tampa Bay Derby."

There is really nothing less valuable than trainerspeak.

perhaps jockeyspeak?

Winstar has already started advertising this horse in the Blood-Horse. :rolleyes: