Derek Ryan on Quality Road: "Look him in the eye and he's counterfeit"
 

Musket Man, trained by Derek Ryan for owners Eric Fein and Vic Carlson, was a game third in the Whitney, despite racing close to the pace under jockey Rajiv Maragh. Ryan is considering both the Woodward and the Hawthorne Gold Cup for the Yonaguska colt as a prep the Breeders’ Cup.

“We’ll probably keep him going long now the rest of the year,” Ryan said. “He ran his race. One of these days, he’s going to get a legitimate pace and the race will set up for him. He was closer than he ever has been in any of his races. It wasn’t by design, but it wasn’t his fault. At least [Maragh] had the initiative and the brains to go on with it.”

Surprised that front-runner Haynesfield opted to lay back rather than challenge Quality Road, Ryan felt the 1-to-2 favorite showed a chink in his armor.

“If we didn’t press him, the other horse wouldn’t have won either,” Ryan said. “Look at it on paper. Quality Road’s on the inside, he’s going to go. The other horse has got to go. They should be up there. If they were going :22 and :45, I’d understand him taking back. But they’re letting them crawl.

“It just goes to show you if you press him a little bit, he’s not as good as they say he is. Just look him in the eye, and he’s counterfeit. Even with those fractions, he’s supposed to win that race yesterday. I’ll buy me a rabbit for the next time.”

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/rac...-Gold-Cup.aspx

You could say the same thing about his training career.

This is a total joke, Is Gales ghost writing?
What happened in the Met?

:tro:

i agree with him tho on the part about 'QR should have won with those fractions'. but it is somewhat humorous that he comes out with this trash talk considering where musket man keeps finishing....

If I'm not mistaken he hasn't had a winner this summer. 6/18 was his last so if that is the case it's obvious he's under a lot of pressure and speaking purely out of bu.tthurt.

Sounds like something that Scat guy would write...

Can pretty much say the same thing about RA

Asmussen must've soiled his boxers when he saw speed merchant QR get caught last Saturday.

He'll probably try to get them to run those NYRA steamrollers over the strip before the PE.

I can't believe the guy said that. QR set suicide fractions in the Met Mile. Musket Man looked like he had him measured and right when QR saw Musket Man, QR dug down and found more and held him off. The Met Mile showed that QR has a lot of heart. To battle back after setting fractions like that was impressive.

well, apparently they will face off yet again. this time both are pointing to the woodward, along with mine that bird. blame heads for the jockey club gold cup.

what's with rail trip? think i saw they were planning on possibly the ky cup classic(or maybe that was lookin at lucky). any chance he takes on either blame or quality road before the classic? also, regarding quality road...does he really go in the classic, or will they ultimately try the dirt mile?

Really? Mine That Bird will try Blame again? Hmmm...well...he will eat up money... :)

no, i meant musket man will try qr again.

There was nothing to Quality Road's inside - so nothing was looking him in his left eye... and while Musket Man was being ridden like he was a rabbit for Blame - he never got head and head to look QR in his right eye.

The only thing that looked Quality Road in the eye that entire race was that stupid braid beed that kept slapping him in the right eyeball over and over.

Yeah - the brilliant Derek Ryan is having a hell of a year. He's 23 for 180 with an ROI of $0.99

Last year he was 37 for 280 with a $1.24 ROI .. and who can forget him retiring Big Truck from racing after two god awful races only to break him down in his new role as a retired workout partner for Musket Man and Schoolyard Dreams.

He'll face one of them... I read he's either running in the Woodward or JCGC then BCC.

I love Pletcher's comments:

“It was still a very good effort. He got beat a nose by spotting an extremely good horse five pounds, and I don’t think the race set up ideally the way we wanted it to. Not taking anything away from Blame, but we look forward to trying him again at equal weights.”

Yeah - I laughed at that.

That's so damn ludicrous, I don't know what to say.

Here's a comment from the Daily News version of the story:

"
The Wizard

9:21:18 AM
Aug 9, 2010

Ryan is a crybaby. Musket Man now has had two chances to beat QR and has failed twice. MM is a very good horse, but is a cut below Blame and QR, no matter how the race unfolds. "

I wonder if this is Kipness.

QR is a speed horse who left his best weapon back at the barn. He runs hard out of the gate... he has the race. Slow pace doesn't help when the stalkers and closers are hanging at their own natural pace a lot closer to the pace than usual. I hate to say a horse is ridden wrong out of respect to the jockeys, and not wanting it to sound like sour grapes. I had a good win, exacta, and tri score. When QR goes off at 1/2 and Haynesfield breaks through the gate i want to cancel my bets and put it all on QR, 1/2 looks like a gift. Good thing I sat on that one.

Speaking of Mine That Bird, Haskin was talking about how he pointed MTB (I think to the Mig was it? It was on ATR that he said it) and the physical transformation from before was amazing. Muscles on top of muscles or something. I couldn't tell on the NYRA video. Why does he end up an afterthought again?

because he didn't run ten f in the slop versus three year olds? no, seriously..he wouldn't be the first classic winner never to win again. i remember reading that lukas said they had worked with him to get him to lay closer early-i'm assuming that didn't work out?

you can say this about alot of them and the stayers always get underestimated and no respect. blame is the newest one. they keep breeding quality roads and rachels and bernardinis...when the real runners are invasor, zenyatta and now blame....i still remember how bernardini and discreet cat were going to "beat up" on invasor. he was like 6 to 7-1 in the classic and pissed all over bernardini......he did the same to discreet cat. yeah the flash of speed is exciting,winning by open lengths(when they can) the number freaks love them but in a true classic battle, they usually wilt.

Are we talking about Godolphin's Bernardini or another Bernardini? Because Godolphin's colt was NOT a speed horse like QR. He was a stone cold runner, by the way. If Invasor is so great, then how do you say that a 3 year old Bernardini, who may not have even run his race, wilted? He beat every other horse in the race except one. That's to Bernardini's credit that he ran well against a great horse......

I love when stayers expose speed horses in the longer route races.

Yeah, the numbers guys were fawning all over Bernardini in that '06 BCC.

Invasor barely beat the mediocre Sun King in his previous race, iirc

Way too slow to handle the super fast B they said … lol

Don't get me wrong, B was a real nice colt, and clearly no cheap speed horse (would've loved to watch him run as a 4yo), but he ran into a buzz saw win machine that day.

Apparently the numbers guys haven't found a way to measure heart yet.


DISGRACEFUL that they continue to shorten theses races too … the Suburban being the latest victim

Probably doing it to accommodate all the cheap speed garbage that breeders seem to keep turning out year after year

Certainly not holding my breath waiting for that next TC winner to come along…

Smooth Operator, be honest for a second, when is the last time you made a bet on a horse race?

Honest For A Second won't like this.




I'm leaving to bet all of my 3 dollars.

I cleared it with honest for a second beforehand.

Good thinking.





OOOOOOOOOO

I assume you missed the UAE Derby - where Discreet Cat beat the living hell out of Invasor?

But hey, I know, Invasor later "avenged" that defeat when Discreet Cat was last at every call and beat 30+ lengths off of a layoff in a race where PG'85 with a gleam of Old Country Buffet's front door in his eye - could have beaten him around the track.

Hard to believe there are still some who don't quite understand that Bernie moved TOO EARLY in the Classic, giving Invasor pretty much a perfect trip last run. Not exactly a good example of a distance challenged horse, IMO.

The best horse in the world would lose EVERY TIME, to inferior competition, in a race where the FLOW went against it (or it went against the flow).

Yeah, Bernardini isn't exactly the best example of a horse who couldn't get 10f, but this is a Smooth Operator example we're discussing, so being factually correct isn't exactly important.

Think the fact that Invasor was a little older and more mature had just as much to do with Dini going down in that contest.

Run the race ten more times and Invasor gets the best of him more often than not, in my estimation

For a second???

Probably not a more honest guy on the board ... lol


11/7/09

WRONG.

Whatever, Rock

You're certainly entitled to your opinion...

I wonder how many races it would have taken for Lava Man and Giacamo to win one race between them.

Now that's funny:tro:

You know I love Z, I think shes much better then that other filly, but I think Bernardini was a total freak. I think Z would have been hard pressed to beat him.

Needed to see Dini as a 4yo … but clearly he was a very nice colt.

GZ was freakish when he started putting it all together later in his 3yo season.