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Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS
What the hell is Pletcher doing with A. P. Arrow?
He would have been 1/5 in that lousy Grade 2 350K field at GP last week .. he entered Fairbanks instead!
Now, A. P. Arrow has two nice works into him since his close 2nd to Spring At Last in the Donn Handicap - instead of entering him in this weeks Gr 2 $500K dirt race at nine furlongs - he decides to enter the lousy tag team of Circular Quay and Magna Graduate.
Keep in mind, Magna Graduate was nominated to the Gr 3 Razorback at Oaklawn Park - a prep for the Oaklawn Park Handicap...which seemed like a highly logical route for MG to take.
A. P. Arrow not entering very logical spots two weeks in a row seems like a pretty big tipoff that Pletcher intends to run him in the Dubai World Cup.
When you only have one halfway decent older male dirt router - and no 3yo to take his place - why take him half way around the world to a race he has no shot in hell of winning?
I realize 2nd place in the World Cup pays $1.2 million and A. P. Arrow isn't a synthetic horse so his BC Classic hopes are nill - but, he's also FAR from a sure thing to run 2nd in Dubai ... and Pletcher is really going to miss him in these yearlong dirt routes in his empty division.
With the picture as it stands now, to me, running A. P. Arrow in Dubai looks almost as silly as not running Rags To Riches in the Belmont looked leading up to that race. If you remember, it had to take a Street Sense defection for him to run her!
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He's sure as hell no less of likely to run 2nd or 3rd in Dubai as is would have been to win the GP Hcp or would be to win the FG race.
Besides Spring at Last and Daaher, AP Arrow is the only horse in that race that got the trip he wanted. And that was the way the race figured. He was no sure thing to beat Fairbainks on Saturday, much less the winner.