Who exactly stood out in that field?

leading up to that derby, everyone said it was the deepest in years. and then barbaro beat them hands down.
sorry if it doesn't jibe with your opinion fat man, it's just what everyone was writing and saying, trainers, owners, sportswriters, etc. and keep in mind, this was in the weeks leading up to that derby. obviously last years was also a deep crop, but they weren't around when barbaros was being written about.

Looking back, it pretty much stunk outside of Lawyer Ron. He didn't really get good until Pletcher got him later on in his career.

exactly, Lawyer Ron did not break through until his 4yo year.

Regardless of whether or not the '06 crop panned out, it sure as hell looked a lot better GOING INTO THE DERBY.

Here are the PP's from the '06 Derby:

http://www.drf.com/tc/kentuckyderby/...yderby_pps.pdf

You're telling me that field doesn't look VASTLY superior to this year's, based on what they did before the Derby?

I think if all tracks were dirt this year they would have looked pretty much the same, though I guess Sweetnorthernsaint looked OK. Boy did he fall off.

no question about it, that field had much more appeal than this last one.

As previously stated...poly surfaces come into play here, tough to get a read on this year's crop. This was the most difficult crop in years to handicap before the Derby...Big Brown looked great but only three starts...it was, in a word, confusing. Probably will be this way for at least a few years until the different poly surfaces are better understood. The time to judge any crop is at the end of their 3 year old season, especially now...lets wait and see.

thanks, the point i was trying to convey. barbaro got tons of respect from that race, he trounced that field.

Point taken, but considering that no synthetic horse finished better than sixth on Saturday, I don't know if we can totally write off the synthetic figures as too low.

Not so much that they were low, but just on a different surface and probably produced more bogus contenders than ever before. If the preps had all been on dirt, the field would have looked much different with a lot more speed in my opinion.

i wonder what cali horses could have won those preps had it been on a dirt surface, and may have given big brown a run for his money? but they couldn't, cause no one knows they might have legit dirt form.

zaftig ran very well ..:cool:

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

yes


The NUMBER ONE DOOFUS horse of all time.

This guy would find trouble in a match race with a late scratch -- his specialty was hitting the gate coming out; had that one down real well.

Phil's weekend figures [winner's pace in brackets] (Beyer equivalent in parentheses):
Westchester - Divine Park [103] 124.75 (114)
Kentucky Derby - Big Brown [100] 120.1 (106)
CD Handicap - Elite Squadron [113] 116.7 (101)
Allowance - Biker Boy [99] 114.3 (97)
Nassau - Zaftig [106] 113.2 (94)
Humana Distaff - Intangaroo [101] 113.1 (94)
Kentucky Oaks - Proud Spell [100] 113 (94)
Louisville - Ginger Punch [91] 112.1 (93)
La Troinenne - Game Face [97] 112 (93)
Alysheba - Giant Gizmo [106] 111 (91)
Kentucky BC - Run Away and Hide [101] 103 (78)

Note that I think the numbers on the three races in the rain (Louisville, Alysheba, and Oaks) came up way too light, despite splitting them out. Think they should be probably 5 lengths faster, although the pace in the Louisville was very slow which affected the final time.

i thought we were judging them at the time of the derby? who would try to make a definitive judgement about the entire season in early May?

I really don't know what the poly surfaces have to do with it.
and how can you say its the most difficult crop in years to handicap when a 2:1 favorite wins? the only difficulty was if you wanted to play against Big Brown trying to find a viable alternative. but it was real easy to look at the field and find the best horse talent-wise. that is seldom the case.

I agree with Somerfrost here. I thought it was the most difficult Derby to cap, too.

Yes, Big Brown looked like the best horse. Was he betable at 2.4-1 from post 20 in his 4th start? I didn't think so. I thought he should have been the fav, but somewhere between 9-2 and 5-1. So, where do you look for value once you decide that Big Brown is over bet? (I'm still saying, like you, Jim, that he was the best horse going in--but that doesn't mean it was wrong to look elsewhere for value.)

Looking elsewhere is where the problems started, and the biggest problem was what to do with the races on synthetic. Pyro? Col John? Cool Coal Man? Monba? Cowboy Cal? How do you evaluate those horses? I found it very tough.

In my initial line I had both Pyro and Col John at around 20-1, based on my usual capping. I ended up fudging them to 10-1, because so may cappers I respect were (1) tossing the Blue Grass (but usually only for Pyro, among those that ran badly!) and (2) saying Col. John looked fantastic on dirt. Even at 10-1 I gave those two less chance than most, and I was not at all confident that I was right about it.

Unfortunately with the tendency to run fewer preps and the spread of synthetic, I don't see things getting easier any time soon.

--Dunbar

I did say that the only difficult part was trying to come up with the alternative to Big Brown. I agree that fewer preps poses a problem, but I still don't get the issue with synthetic. Colonel John may have looked fast in the dirt work, but his races did not scream that he was fast enough and he was the best of the synthetic group. didn't the synthetic speed numbers turn out to be very fairly well replicated on dirt? You really had to project some improvement on to him in order to make the case, and it was a flimsy case based more on the fact that he looked the part. I played this race wrong, thats for sure.

Wasn't he the only horse going from synthetics that was even within 10 lengths of his previous races in the Derby?

I don't know. but I did think he was the most likely one to step up in the derby based on his breeding and running style. I thought Gayego had run his best route already at 9 furlongs.