Thanks for the time you put into this. It is a good primer and very interesting.

Well I guess we have reached the heart of the disagreement.
I simply have no idea how you could watch those two races and come to that conclusion.

I agee -- Country Star has a more potential then Indian Blessing.

[quote=
I'm serious - If Indian Blessing wins the Derby - I will become a muslim.[/QUOTE]

Has a man ever been converted to Islam by an Indian Blessing?

Still no?

Another three-eighths would have been a piece of cake this weekend, eh?

When Smarty Jones was walking home at the finish of the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn and the closers were gaining ground fast, everyone pointed to that race and said "see, he's got distance limitations." When he ran off and hid from them in every other race after that, I didn't hear that anymore. Don't take what happens in a shorter race that is a prep and automatically apply it to what will happen in a longer race. Races of different distances are run in different ways. The timing of when a rider asks a horse to make it's moves, the speed and pace a horse will be asked to run....these things are different and aren't always a proper indicator. What if the horse that just ran second to her comes back and faces her again next out with the same rider? It's not illogical thinking to see how the rider could be thinking that with a little more ground, he can beat Indian Blessing. He could be thinking that IB can't run any further so if he just rides the same kind of race, he can get her late. But what happens if there is no other speed to challenge IB in the next one? What happens if she's allowed to run along at a slower pace and isn't pressed at all around that last turn. Maybe that other rider realizes that he better go after her earlier because she could get away from them and then he takes away some of the late kick of his own mount. Maybe he figures that she'll stop on her own and doesn't go after her and after setting a more leisurely pace, IB doesn't stop. One race doesn't not dictate how another will be run.

I'm not trying to use that race as a blanket way to say that I think that 7 furlong races are the best indicator of 10 furlong races in the future.

It was just another race that shows me that the horse has no chance of lasting at ten furlongs given her style and her (lack of) stamina. That makes three in a row that lead to that conclusion for most people watching closely.

I don't know how that makes three in a row though. After the Frizette, people said she was walking home and would get caught the next time but the next time, with another turn and added distance, she won by more. People wanted to say it was because of the track and nobody else liking it but to me, that doesn't really make sense. How come only one horse liked it? Also, one of the horses that she had beaten in the Frizette, Backseat Rhythm, came back to hit the board in the BC too so it appeared she was ok with the track. This race yesterday has no bearing on what she'll do later. It was a sprint, she was trained for a sprint and she ran fast. If one was to look at yesterday's race, they would conclude that she couldn't last past 7f but we know that's not true because she's already won grade ones at 8f and 8.5f.

Who knows how far she will run? I don't know. I'm not saying she will run 10f. But I haven't seen any reason to believe yet that many others have a better chance of running it better than her. But then again, maybe I haven't been watching closely or just don't know what I'm looking at. We'll see.

Not to belabor it -- but to me, it's the way she's coming home. Sure, nobody got close to her in the Frizette, and nobody got close to her in the BCJF. But she certainly appeared to get leg-weary far too early in the stretch of both races to be able to hang on at a distance like 10 furlongs.

The fact that Backseat Rhythm can't catch her at 1 1/16 when she's falling apart in the late stages isn't exactly a fiery endorsement of her potential to stretch out further, let alone against males.

There is nothing to suggest she can rate. There is nothing to suggest she can back a pace up. Factor those two negatives with her inability to stride out impressively going just 1 1/16, and throw 19 other horses behind her at the three-eighths -- someone catches her.

Not only someone, but likely about 15 someones.

Golden Doc A had Indian Blessings on the ropes, and with another few feet would have won the race. If I was a big fan of Indian Blessings that would scare me a little bit.

I thought she did a very good job of rating and relaxing behind a horse in the Frizette.

No she didn't and no she wouldn't have. If the race had been a few more feet, Indian Blessing's rider would have waited a little longer to make his run and saved a little more for the stretch. It's like the 1989 BC Classic. Everyone wanted to say that Easy Goer was closing so strongly on Sunday Silence and in another jump or two, would have passed him. Wrong. If you notice, McCarron was hand riding Sunday Silence. He knew how much he had left under him and how much he needed to have under him. He timed his move to fit the distance of the race he was riding. If the race had been 10f plus 50 yards, both riders might have waited just a little bit longer to make their moves and the results still would have been the same. Riders time their moves and trainers, good ones at least, train their horses to the conditions of the specific race they are in.

you honestly think Gomez is that smart and knew he had just enough to win by a few inches????? You really think that he wanted it to be that close??? No way in hell.

Isn't that what we all do on here? I also said that Curlin might lose the Derby but by the end of the year, there would be no doubt that he was the best 3yo. Sometimes we are right, sometimes we are wrong. No biggie.

So now you're comparing Indian Blessing to Smarty Jones? WTF?

Only you would take it that way. Only you.