Toughest job in racing this year?
 

It could belong to Steve Haskin....who is required to write about 263 different 3-year-olds and say nice things about every one.

That is where reporting on the resplendancy of their dapples comes in.

He can just pull up one of the stories he rehashes from the last 5 years and change the names. I can't wait until his Derby picks come out and he mentions 12 of the 20 entrants.

The crop looks terrible so far.

If things don't start to improve - it could end up being the 2nd straight year that the 4th place finisher in the Sunland Derby wins... if only said horse had the graded earnings.

Give it time.

:tro:

I look forward to everything Haskin writes. He's a fan first, and a great writer second...it comes across that way which is fine.

His big fancy profile of the week: http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-raci...-trail-gung-ho

It went to "budding star" Hotep for his stellar 79 Beyer win in his 4th career start - taking an opt claimer at odds-on over "a good horse" in Down With Dixie.

3rd place finisher Mr. Winthrop, beaten less than 4 lengths by Hotep, was 8th beaten 11.5 lengths at 45/1 odds in an Opt Claimer in his prior start.

The entire field of 6 was seperated by just 5 lengths - a bad sign on dirt - and 4th place could have been claimed for 50K.

Hopefully a real buzzworthy prospect or two emerge soon.

If you had to pen a Derby Dozen article up to this point what horses would it include?

None of them right now.

Since he says nice things about all of them it defeats the purpose of the exercise.

DrugS, the Sunland Dertby is graded now so 4th place is worth about $48k in graded earnings.

Doesn't matter if it's a weak bunch, someone's going to turn out to the best of them in KY. The biggest problem is that there was a time when horses with stakes credentials already would actually be contenders.

I guess that is why the field in the Future wager is at 2-5.

Haskin loves those dapples.

I loaded-up on a dappled-out schooler at Gulfstream the other day. The horse faded to last. I remembered around the 16th pole why physical handicapping only works when you do it everyday, and see the same horse everyday. This is not a knock on Steve at all, but more general.

That is a terrific point. I was totally unimpressed seeing Summer Bird school in the paddock before the Haskell, thought he looked like a bag of bones...problem is I don't know if that was just his look...obviously he ran a terrific race against Rachel that I didn't see coming.

Yikes, I'm so uninspired by this crop I can't even fill my WinStar fantasy contest stable.