The connections surely don't inspire confidence....nor do his on-track performances.

You're ignoring one key piece of evidence. Right now, he has the best gallop out of any horse thus far on the Derby trail.

And that's where you want to put your money...on the horse moving the fastest after the real running has stopped...

The only thing we have to worry about is will he be the annual Pletcher horse retired 7-10 days before the Kentucky Derby?

He's not good enough to be that horse. When he retires, nobody will notice....until his stud ad, which invariably will read "his gallop out in the Sam F. Davis made him the talk of the Derby trail."

Any opinion on Reach the World? I really want him to be good.

The allowance race on Thursday will probably end up more important than the Robert Lewis Stakes. Whoever wins that race might be a late-blooming contender.

Hopefully, Baffert runs both Reach The World and Irish Freedom. Battle Of Midway, Roglio, and the filly Vexatious are in there, too.

However, Santa Anita's timing to finally fill an allowance race for 3yos of quality is impeccable seeing how the San Felipe will be run just 48 hours later.

When I first looked at the race I thought potential key race. Irish Freedom could be OK, same with Vexatious. Decent looking Thursday card. Didn't realize Vexatious was a filly after first glance.

Irish Freedom beat the nice Royal Mo in the Summer at a distance he wants nothing to do with,too bad he's been delayed.
Reach the World is the second fiddle 3yo Tapit in the Don Alberto Stable,they must be feeling good about things.
The race does look like a Baffert exacta.

:) !

I'm certain you'll forgive me for not taking the bait here, since the memories of you two trolling anyone with something decent to say about American Pharoah almost 2 years to the day are still fresh.

A full field of 10 entrants, and an honest case can be made for 6 of them. Not quite scintillating as the Gotham, but we'll take what we can get. :rolleyes:

I think you're laying the bait....I mean, seriously, you are pointing out some heavy favorite that we were wrong about two years ago? Is that the best you got? Surely you have something better than taking an idiotic shot at the Gotham, as fast a prep as we have seen so far on the TC trail.

Tapwrit finished a length and a half back of an 98 year old track record, against a severe speed bias.... I'd submit to you that is the fastest prep we've seen so far, but I'm sure you will disagree, and the League of NYRA Defenders will gleefully pile on.

Compared, of course, to J Boys Echo, who got an absolute dream setup and likely just ran a career top.

Personally I'm looking forward to another tour de force Wood winner to get pathetically overbet at Churchill.

Some things never change.

I am loathe to agree with Mike Watchmaker, but most of that field flirted with the track record, which renders the race pretty suspect in my eyes.

I think the argument over fastest prep race thus far will be rendered moot after this weekend.

Both points are valid, and certainly there is precedent in Sam Davis winners finishing strong and then the field disappearing into the ether. 2014 in particular, where all participants exited with overblown figures (particularly Thorograph) and none of them ever lifted a foot afterward. The winner, Vinceremos, was bested by Ring Weekend in the TB Derby, then was uncharacteristically (by Pletcher standards) entered into the Blue Grass where he fell flat, repeating that performance in the Kentucky Derby. He would wind up running start allowances at Parx before calling it quits.

This weekend hopefully sheds some light.

You had zero confidence in tapwrit and mastery......they must not have heard about it I guess. But then you've been nowheresville since you spent all that time crowing about your positive ROI at Saratoga.

Huh? The "zero confidence" thing you quoted from an earlier BTW post referred to El Areeb and Classic Empire, not Tapwrit and Mastery.

True, but he strongly disliked both mastery, and tapwrit
They both were awesome today , by the way

Mastery has fractured leg. Out of derby

Bummer. Good job getting off him by Mike smith. Hopefully he will heal well