9/5 (CD): Derby Trail Probables ~ 11 for Preakness with Swiss

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by Betsy

I think Mike didn’t want to lose position after being slammed at the start...so he rushed up a bit.

That's downplaying the terrible move Smith made. He basically made a 5-wide sweep in the middle of the first turn after a 1/4 mile, way too late to be establishing early position.

What I don’t agree with is this notion that HAP has little to no speed. He closed from the clouds in his debut because he didn’t break great and Mike didn’t push, but he broke his maiden wire to wire. People forget that because it came between his flashy second under debut and his very good second in the San Felipe.

I know he broke his maiden wire-to-wire, however, to say he ran in one of the worst 2yo maiden special weights of the year in CA would be an understatement. Only the now 1-for-10 Tizamagician subsequently won a MSW, and one of the also-rans came back to win a bottom level maiden claimer before going on the bench for several months. The others are all still toiling in the maiden ranks. Honor A.P., coming off his debut in a sprint, was ripe to show more pace on the stretch-out, and probably found himself dominating the race on sheer class judging by his rivals' subsequent records.

He’s versatile - he can close from well out of it, stalk as in the SF or run from mid-pack as in the SA Derby. I’m not trying to convince anyone to think more highly of him than they do, but these are just the facts.

I don't see much difference between his trip in the San Felipe and SA Derby. He's a stalker with a strong turn move--and Smith's ride in the Shared Belief played against that style.

At any rate, the comparison was with Art Collector who is clearly more versatile than Honor A.P. having shown winning form at multiple levels, over multiple distances, with different running styles.

I didn’t expect or want the colt to be cranked for the Shared Belief, but I expected him to be trained like he was for the San Felipe. He wasn’t. I was seriously concerned about what HAP got out of this race...

I wouldn't have been, Smith made the horse run for over 3/4 of a mile and the colt still finished with good courage. If he was lacking any fitness for the Shared Belief, he probably wasn't afterwards.

...but his fantastic work a couple of days ago made me feel a little better about.

This is where I would be concerned. The classic overreaction on the part of the connections. Not only did they work the horse a mere 7 days after that gut-busting trip courtesy of Smith in the Shared Belief, but then they breezed the horse a near bullet in the afternoon over one of the most tiring surfaces in the country. Smith even went so far as to push the horse aggressively on the gallop out, needlessly giving the horse a couple of shoulder taps a few strides before standing up on him at the 7/8 pole.

A good candidate to be over-the-top come Derby day, a la Bolt d'Oro.