Quote:
Originally Posted by moses
For National Treasure, it looks to me like he has been slow to switch leads in a few of his races. He’ll lose ground coming out of the turn and then you can see him switch leads and he makes up ground late in the stretch. Maybe someone who is better at eyeballing that can confirm. Based on his recent workouts, it looks to me like he’s improved. If he sets the pace and switches leads properly, I think he’s got a very strong chance to win this one. I think he’s my pick.
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National Treasure is the west coast's answer to Verifying. A horse who early in his career had the look of an under-the-radar type that might blossom, but ultimately has no acceleration & has had umpteen chances to break out and has failed each and every time.
Having said that, considering the weakness of the race & the dearth of early pace, I think it's reasonable to land on this horse & presume he will head straight to the lead (especially having drawn the rail) to perhaps try to steal it.
However, just because the plan is to go to the lead doesn't mean he will accomplish it. The horse has never shown true front-running ability despite breaking well enough in all his starts. Even in his maiden sprint win he was actually outsprinted the first hundred yards before inheriting the lead.
In what seems to be an epidemic amongst HOF trainers, Baffert is slapping the blinkers on National Treasure for this. Makes sense in the face of the pace scenario, post position, & presumed tactical plan. However, Baffert tried blinkers on the horse previously in the BC Juvenile & the horse found himself further back than in his other previous races. To be fair, he did break from an outside post at Keeneland & eventually worked his way into a pressing position after about 5 furlongs.
Finally, this horse was a veterinary scratch from the San Felipe, thus he's missed a major Derby prep & obviously didn't get much of a break from whatever was ailing him so its hard to have faith that he's actually progressing at this point. Perhaps what he's shown so far is good enough if the favorite falters & Blazing Sevens fails to improve further from his ho-hum 3yo efforts.
Seems to have the requisite stamina but he's one-paced, usually loses position when the real running starts, and hasn't displayed much of a stretch punch in any of his races.