But many are faster than he is....which is all that matters.

What exactly is the fascination with this horse? Is it because his connections had another ridiculously overrated horse two years ago?

I'm interested to see what excuse they will have for his lackluster performance......I'm sure they're gonna say that there is something wrong w/ him.

I'm not impressed with him at all if you really want to know. The three that I like THE MOST so far for the derby are Liquidity, Notional and Bwana Bull. I haven't tossed Scat Daddy yet, either.

Hey, I'm still holding out hope that Dynever comes out of retirement....and wins a photo.

LMAO!

Eric

To each their own concerning Scat Daddy. I'll give the colt one more start and if he doesn't show what I thought I saw last year, I'll toss him out of my derby stable. Simple as that. ;)

What exactly did you see last year?

Whatever it was it must have happened in some secret race of his I didn't see. You do know he " ran " at Gulfstream a few weeks ago...right?

I found the comment below posted on the Fox Hill Farm forum. As I understand it the person who wrote this is an assistant. My question is regarding the "struggling with the surface" comment. It looks like HS has been at Oaklawn and training well since the beginning of the year. So today he struggled with the surface?

At least it was classy in the way that they acknowledged the winner and didn't have a lot of sour grapes about the whole deal.


"Hard Spun seems to have come out of the race in good order. He was scoped and that came back fine.

It'd be nice to find someone or something to blame -- to have a firm excuse -- but that's simply not the case here. It seemed apparent from the break that what we were watching wasn't the Hard Spun we knew -- he has more speed than that. Mario agreed, reporting that he knew immediately that Hard Spun was struggling with the surface.

The important thing is that Hard Spun came out of the race well -- we'll fight another day.

Congratulations to the connections of Teuflesberg on a very nice race."

The track must have been cuppy.

I agree, Jim, it is nice to see such gracious comments.

Yes, of course I know that.

Not like it matters to you what I "saw" last year, but I saw a horse I thought had a nice opportunity to improve as a 3 year old. To me, he looked a bit immature last year physically, but I liked his stride and attitude going into the races. I may have been very wrong, but I'm willing to give him another shot and we'll see how well he runs in the FOY. If he runs up the track, then there you go... this isn't a contest as to who is right or wrong. It was just my opinion on Scat Daddy. Who do you like, Andy? Who are some of your top horses right now for the derby?

Honestly, Cajun, I have no real Derby opinions right now. Geez, most of these horses haven't even really run yet. I know that Scat Daddy has almost no chance. His last race was dreadful and this isn't exactly a barn that turns them around once they go the wrong way. To be perfectly honest, while I think NoBiz looks as good as any right now, I wasn't overly impressed with his return. But, at least he did what he had to ( much like Any Given Saturday ). Scat Daddy stunk up the joint. I won't be surprised if he's retired much sooner than later.

I don't know how good the Risen Star really was last week but I do kind of like the horse that finished second. He showed some guts in the lane. Of course, it was a race that kind of collapsed. However, if anyone out of that race does well I would take a shot with him. What's his name again?

Imawildandcrazyguy :D

What really got me was this line..

"It'd be nice to find someone or something to blame -- to have a firm excuse -- but that's simply not the case here."

Refreshingly honest I thought.

Yeah, him. He ran a nice race. A slightly sweeter trip and he probably would have won. He's got some courage.

I'mawildandcrazyguy or something like that.

Not only did he get pace, but the final time of the Risen Star was slower than it took Appealing Zophie....

Sounds like they weren't particularly surprised. I guess there's some talk that he missed some training, though I'm always dubious how much that affected any performance, and frankly he ran at least as well today as he has done in the past.

Thanks for your opinion. He was another horse that sold for almost nothing as a yearling at the OBS. I like to see horses like that do well, so I hope he makes it into the derby.

Yeah, but he hadn't run in a little while, and he weaved his way through the stretch fairly well, and showed me something getting up for second.

He's probably not going anywhere, which could be said for that entire field, but I'll take my chances with him against similar.

He was off the board at 3/10 odds in a weak Calder n2l allowance in Mid-November.

I remember his rider was involved in a pretty bad spill the race prior, and I believe took off his remaining mounts after the alw race. That might be the lamest attempt at an excuse I've ever put in my trip notes....