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Originally Posted by King Glorious
It's ok that you are stuck in the old ways and can't adapt to the way the game is played today. Conditions just don't mean as much these days. You can see that the differences these days between stakes and allowance races is not like used to be. You saw that field yesterday. Was it really what you'd call a grade two level race? Not to me. Without knowing what the name of the race was, that could have easily passed for a Thursday allowance at Hollywood. It was not more stressful simply because of the title and grade. I just happen to think it's silly to waste two or three races getting this supposed foundation and experience (all the good it did him yesterday) when he's probably not going to have more than 6-7 more career races anyway. This is not the game of the past.
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Well, typically one of the more significant differences between allowance races and stakes races is the pace. Not just in strict terms of the early fractions either. There is something to the notion of "cheap speed" and what I guess you'd call "quality speed". Its much less taxing on horse to set or chase a :48 half when the closest rival is sure to falter then it is to do so versus a classier horse who can respond when things heat up. Basically, Rail Trip (who's route efforts were much less impressive than his sprints) was doing to allowance foes what Ball Four did (and has done in the past in graded stakes) to him. He would have almost certainly run up the track in the Big Cap or something like the San Antonio when having to take it to horses like Well Armed and Motto Mundo, had he been rushed into those spots.
Instead, he has come along steadily and really has lost nothing of importance by finally losing a race (by the way, did you happen to give up on Azeri after she lost the La Canada?) other than technicolor dreamcoat of hype he's worn since the beginning of this year. Now we have a better idea of where he fits and nothing suggests, given the current makeup of the older horse division, that he won't make more noise in stakes routes at least in CA, maybe even win one or two. At the same time, as more learned posters than ourselves suggested, he may prove to be a top quality sprinter.