Commentator > First Defence
 

Go easy on me Andy. ;)

Fine effort by Commentator to overcome the training job by Zito.

;) :tro:

not taking anything away from commentator..but it just shows how sad the horses are in this year....great job by commentator /zito knowing the rail,the speed, the lack of talent.. means a 7 year old wins the whitney..:tro: :rolleyes:

Is Commentator a gelding? I didn't think he was, but now I'm thinking he must be. Can't find any mention of it online.

Suzanne

Yes, he's a gelding.

Distorted Humor has somehow become a great big route race stallion.

Hystericalady just embarassed the field going 10fs in the $1 million Del Cap

Commentator has two Whitneys.

Funny Cide has a Derby and Preakness

Any Given Saturday has a Haskell score over Curlin and Hard Spun

Flower Alley has a Travers win and a 2nd in the BC Classic.

Threadjack Alert...

Not sure if it was mentioned elsewheres, but is there any update on Rising Moon after being vanned off with a left front leg injury??

Thx in advance.

It was either the jockey or a thrown shoe.

Two Questions:
1) Do you think the fact that he won a race named the Salvator Mile is what gave him that extra something special to be a great sire?

2) Do all of those big victories by his progeny make up for the fact that he also is the one responsible for the creation of Cowtown Cat?

preliminary beyer for Commentator - 120:eek:

Wow. Has there been a 120 in the last five years? Didn't Lawyer Ron get a monster Beyer in the same race last year before it was adjusted down?

That's not his top - he ran a 123 in the last Whitney. Ghostzapper also ran faster and probably a few others that I can't think of.

That is the most skeptical 120 fig since Midway Road's.

Because the wildly overrated Ginger Punch, and the complete bums she beat, went so slow - it makes it almost impossible to not have the Whitney in the 116-to-120 range without cutting races loose and making hack redboard style of figures.

The 120 beyer would be believable if it didn't mean Student Council ran a 112. No way that horse is running a 112.

I can think of a couple of hundred races that I'd expect to get a 120 before the Whitney.

Probably thousands before a 112 that Student Council got.

Would anybody really be surprised that an Asmussen suddenly ran a huge race?

Even if you cut this race looose, it would be hard to give Commentator much less than something in the 116-120 range. The 3rd place horse finished 13 lengths behind. That's about 20 Beyer pts. If Commentator is given a 116, then horses 3-11 get 96 or less. But every one of those 9 horses except Cowton Cat and Notional had run at least a 97 BSF in 2 of its last 3 races, and Notional came into the race off a 109 BSF. To give Commentator less than 116 would mean that the 9 horses behind Student Council had regressed off recent form.

--Dunbar

But it's not like Student Council was a new acquisition or a young horse.

It is his first try on fast dirt with Asmussen.

That's a fair point - it's note entirely factual but I know what you're saying. . . He never ran 113s for Cerin, though.

Student Council is a dog, and if not for polytrack at del mar would be running in 3x, I cant take that horse serious.

I missed that he had him for the initial Hawthorne race. Even then, the pace was a crawl and he overcame it. It was really not possible to run fast with that setup.

As for Cerin, he isn't even close to Asmussen.

It is widely known that horses tend to run bigger numbers on dirt when running well then other surfaces. The horse ran around 102 on synthetics, so is it really that far fetched to think he could run around 110 on dirt?

I'm not saying he did or didn't. I haven't looked at the card. I'm just saying you have to look at these things in depth and not base opinions on general impressions.

I'm not so sure about that anymore. His last three races on the dirt in this country have been the Hawthorne Gold Cup, the Pim Special (both of which he won), and yesterday's race. All three of those were decent races by him (at least by the standards of dirt routers over the last couple of years).
Clearly nobody is going to be confusing him with Ghostzapper any time soon, but compared to the current dirt routers, he isn't terrible, and his two dirt races this year have been as good or better than anything he has ever done on synthetics.