FAIR ENOUGH

True and if grasshopper was anything but a rat nag, he would have won a stake by now. He would have won one last year. The fact is, he is still eligible for nx2.

Tiago is a multiple graded stake winner. He has won a stake at three and four.

Grasshopper has won only a maiden and an allowance.

How can the two be compared?

There are more accomplished horses on a friday afternoon at presque isle downs.

I think you misunderstood what I meant.

ftfy...

why do people here keep saying he has only won a maiden and an allowance? Since when is a grade 3 win considered an allowance?? Maybe I'm crazy but I could have sworn he easily won a stakes at Fair Grounds this year or am I really crazy??
(yeah, it was the Mineshaft Handicap...a grade 3...he won that. He is in fact a stakes winner.)

yes he did, i should have known that... then he was barley, BARLEY DEFEATED BY CIRCULAR QUAY

yeah? And what did he beat in that? Ive got to hear this.

Magna Graduate and not much else

magna graduate is the rip torn of stake horses. He is old and you know he is famous for something...you just cant think of what.

again i think your missing the point, but i guess i should not talk, cause i guess i miss the point a lot

No this makes your point even more off. Your original "point" was that maybe Grasshopper had soured between three and four and that he was in better form last year. well, if he did win a "stake" it was this year.

So what is your point?

finished 2nd to Invasor in the Donn?

Who is Barley?

Grasshopper's "huge" second in the weakly assembled Travers field was IMO further validation that Street Sense, despite the Derby win (in which he was lugging in badly the final 1/8th), was not particularly suited to 10f, as opposed to evidence that Grasshopper was improving leaps and bounds. Assuming this, it came as no shock that he lost the Super Derby at odds-on next out (or that Street Sense hung badly the final 1/8th of the BC Classic when trying to match strides with Curlin).

Put on the shelf afterwards, like most Lane's End colts, he wintered at the Fairgrounds for the stakes leading up to the New Orleans Handicap. And like those recent horses (eg Midway Road, Rock Slide, Patriot Act, Parade Leader, Alumni Hall, Crossword), with the exception of Mineshaft, he failed to progress significantly from his 3yo campaign, which had him ranked in the 2nd-tier at best.

Following the New Orleans, trainer Neil Howard typically uses the Ben Ali as a bridge to the Pimlico Special and NY handicaps, but this year, perhaps to avoid the Polytrack, he chose to start Grasshopper in the one-turn Westchester at Belmont, where he ran into that buzzsaw of McLaughlin's that ended up winning the Met Mile. At the time, Howard was quoted as saying he thought the colt, despite his modest success around two turns, was actually better suited to a flat mile. Given his pedigree, by the precocious 2yo and sprinter/middle distance 3yo Dixie Union out of a Mr. Prospector mare, this actually makes some sense.

Neil Howard, following that browbeating in the Westchester chose to stretch the colt back out to no avail in the Pimlico Special and Stephen Foster, but given Devine Park's lofty speed figures and subsequent exploits, a career geared towards extended sprints and flat miles still makes a lot of sense, just not necessarily at the Grade 1 level.

He could be the next Saarland.

While I don't think that much of Grasshopper, I'll give him a shot at whatever stakes race he enters at Saratoga this summer.. especially if he's at a decent price. I think he likes that track.

I basically agree with Rollo here.
Grasshopper was tremendously overrated after his run in the Travers. He ran close to Street Sense that day, but Street Sense was something of a hanger (athough obviously a very good hanger) unless he got his rail trip.
That day Grasshopper was allowed to lope along down the backstretch in :48.18 and 1:12.43. It wasn't at all shocking that Street Sense wasn't able to blow by him in the stretch considering those early fractions and the fact that Street Sense didn't get his ideal trip. Grasshopper also got recognition because he and Street Sense finished so far ahead of the rest of the field, but again this was the result of a the soft early fractions and the low quality of the rest of the starters. These are all of the reasons that I made a few bucks betting against Grasshopper in the Super Derby.

I don't know how much he really slipped from 3 to 4. I think he was just highly overrated at 3.

I think you are wrong here, and jcs is right.
This whole business about being "fully cranked" is a usually a bunch of nonsense in my opinion, but to the extent that a trainer can try to have a horse peak on a particular day, I find it nearly impossible to believe that the connections would not want a horse to be at a peak for the Travers.
The connections wouldn't know for sure what the field would be for a race until just days before the race. Do you really think that any trainer would not try to have a horse at his best for the Travers, simply because he guesses weeks in advance that it might not be a great field? That seems unlikely.

Alumni Hall didn't make his debut until he was 5 - Neil Howard did a great job getting him to the races and making him a stakes winner, given the colt's injury history. Rock Slide only made a few starts at 3 and actually he did improve as a 4 year old, winning at least one stakes that I can think of. He was a late developer; he wasn't a top class horse, but he was a nice colt and he was hard-knocking. Patriot Act didn't even improve from 2 to 3, but eventually he did win a stakes race as a 4 year old.... Are you claiming Neil Howard is not a good trainer?

oh, you've sold me now since you used all caps, that definitely strengthens ANY arguement.:rolleyes: