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Originally Posted by lemoncrush
In fairness, Circular Quay was never a synthetic horse. He won a Grade 1 and Grade 3 on dirt in his 2-yo season, and a Grade 2 on dirt as a 3 year old.
He never won a race on synthetic or turf.
I know many are buying into the west coast horses for the Derby simply because of the blanket statement that they'll all move way up on dirt, which I completely diasgree with.
In Papa Clem's case, you don't think the trip and the horrific field assembled in the Arkansas Derby had more to do with him winning, rather than moving up on a natural dirt surface? For Oaklawn, after a number of memorable Arkansas Derby's the past 5 years, the last 2 have been ridiculously bad.
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Yeah, Circular Quay was a reach, but I thought I'd throw him in there because I didn't want to list just the Oaklawn and CD winners.
I should have added Gayego in the Arkansas Derby.
I'm not going to make a blanket assumption that the SoCal horses are going to move up on dirt first time off Cushion Track/Pro Ride. Nor am I going to summarily dismiss what they accomplished out there just because of the surface. Just another factor to consider. Who knows what Pro Ride does to those horses? Maybe they get more conditioning with less stress to muscles and tendons than if they trained over a conventional dirt surface.
As for Papa Clem, I agree that he benefited at Hot Springs from being in the garden spot in midpack behind OF as well as having to chase down only a horse who was probably injured in the race. It is not to Papa Clem's credit that Summer Bird was making up ground on him at the end.