I've had 4 barometer horses for Orb run back at Churchill Downs, 3 of them won including the most important one, Authenticity, because Authenticity most mirrored his performance. Take Charge Indy and Golden Ticket were the other two winners...both routed on Fla derby Day and their efforts middle'd Orb's effort that day.
The only one who lost was Dreaming Of Julia ... and she was kid-gloved into the race by Pletcher with a final workout that looked more like a gallop, and ran in a race where the pace dynamics were terrible for her.
I stated before the race there was a 100% chance I would have scratched her, let the other quality speeds tear each apart (like they did), and I'd have pointed for the equally prestigious races in New York with an eye on the BC Distaff. That might have been viewed as a cowardly path to take by the general public, but it was the analytically correct one.
Dreaming of Julia didn't scratch today, and Borel made a sharp left hand turn out of the gate and knocked her sideways at the start. She was forced out of her trip and ran very erratically throughout... in one of those sneaky good efforts with a terrible looking result.
Anyway, I'm going to scale back some of my knocking of Orb. He's still out as a win candidate for me, but the good efforts of three of his four barometer horses who raced at CD this week are going to cement him for the 3rd and 4th spot on all my exotic tickets.
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